Hiatus
by NotesfromaClassroom
Summary: Carol Marcus resigns from Starfleet...and discovers that life as a civilian can be just as dangerous. As she attempts to solve a mystery and save a planet, Carol has to call on the people she trusts most...the crew of the Enterprise.
1. Departure and Arrival

**Chapter One: Departure and Arrival**

**Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from writing about these characters.**

Carol Marcus wakes with a jerk. For one terrifying moment she doesn't know where she is, but she hears someone running past her open door and she remembers. Starfleet's medical center, San Francisco. As if on cue, pain lances through her knee.

She blinks back tears. Not from the physical pain, of course. She can bear that. What threatens to overwhelm her is the image of Khan's face contorted with rage, his hands on her father's head—

More running in the hall, a crash cart being maneuvered past on an anti-grav skid, the faint beep of alarms going off.

Someone's coding.

With a sudden conviction, Carol knows who. Jim Kirk.

Wincing, she sits up in bed and pivots her legs off the side. Gingerly shifting her weight to favor her damaged knee, she makes her way to the door of the small hospital room and looks to the end of the hall and the room where Kirk is being kept in an induced coma. The glass doors are folded back but so many medics are hovering around that Carol can't make out the bed.

"Get out of the way!" Leonard McCoy yells from behind her. Turning, she sees him rushing up the hall, his rumpled scrubs and tousled hair proof that he has been asleep, probably kipped out on a couch in the residents' lounge.

With an almost imperceptible nod he acknowledges her as he passes—which Carol accepts as a sort of permission. Gritting her teeth, she makes her way slowly up the hall until she is standing at the shoulder of a technician manning a portable defibrillator. From here she can see Jim Kirk's motionless body on the bed and hear McCoy giving directions.

"10 cc's cordrazine," he says, and a medic presses a syringe into one of the IV lines.

McCoy's attention is on the monitor directly above the bed. Although she isn't a medical doctor, Carol knows enough to recognize the heart and respiration indicators. Both are flat-lined.

Her own heart hammering wildly, she watches as McCoy says, "Dammit, Jim! Don't do this!"

No one moves. The alarm on the monitor continues to screech.

"Another 5 cc's," McCoy says, and the medic swivels his head and says, "Doctor—"

"Do it!"

McCoy's tone brooks no discussion and the medic lifts the syringe to the IV line again and presses.

"Come on, come on," McCoy mutters.

For an eternal moment nothing happens, and then—

The alarm goes silent and is replaced with a steady blip, blip of the heart monitor. Kirk takes an audible intake of air and the respiratory indicator lights back up.

For several minutes Carol watches as McCoy barks out commands and medics scurry to comply. From what she can gather, this is the second time the captain has gone into cardiac arrest since the transfusion with Khan's blood—an unexpected side effect requiring drastic measures to stabilize.

A uniformed nurse presses past her with a wheeled infusion stand and with a start Carol realizes she is in the way. Turning to go, she stops abruptly at the sight of Commander Spock standing a few meters behind her.

He looks almost as he did when the _Enterprise_ limped back into Space Dock a few hours earlier. Still in his science blues, he is visibly battered, dark bruises starting to appear on his face and neck, a long gash across his nose and brow stitched and covered with a transparent plaster. Without meaning to, Carol jumps.

"You startled me," she says unnecessarily.

Spock's eyes flick from her face to the room beyond and back again. No one she's ever known has made her feel quite so uncomfortable when he trains his gaze on her.

It's her own fault. The first time she met him she had been terrified that Captain Kirk would question her forged transfer—and Spock's intense scrutiny that entire shuttle ride up to the ship had convinced her he could see through her sham. The second time he had spoken to her she was terrified that he would go straight to the captain with his discovery that she was, in fact, a stowaway. She had prevailed on him not to—putting him in an untenable position, asking him to keep a secret from his commanding officer. She was frankly surprised when he didn't haul her directly to the brig.

She wants to tell him that—to thank him for keeping her secret even as she apologizes for burdening him with it.

And more. Somehow she needs to apologize for all _this_, for Jim Kirk lying critically wounded in a hospital bed, for all the crew members hurt or lost because of the actions of her father.

Not that she blames herself for what he did. Someone in Starfleet sanctioned his work for Section 31, approved the secret long-range torpedoes and the massive warship built with Khan's help.

But she needs atonement for what she _does_ blame herself for—for not being quick or clever enough to stop his assault on the _Enterprise_.

Meeting Spock's gaze, she struggles to know how to start.

"I—" she says, faltering. Taking a deep breath, she gestures toward the room where the medics are still busy. "I—think the captain's stable, for now."

She's stalling. Spock will call her on it, will take her to task for wasting his time.

Instead, he says, "Your injuries?"

His comment is so unexpected, so solicitous, that for a moment Carol can't speak. She searches his face for an expression of concern but she has trouble reading him.

"I'm fine," she says quickly, and then amends with, "Well, not _fine_, but I will be. I'm only here because they gave me something earlier for the pain—"

She doesn't finish the sentence but trusts he will understand that she isn't referring to her torn ACL, her broken kneecap.

Spock gives a curt nod and looks over her shoulder at the medics still bustling in and out of Kirk's room. For a moment he is motionless, but then he turns and looks past her, obviously hearing something in the distance.

A uniformed JAG officer carrying a PADD is making his way down the corridor.

"Dr. Marcus? Lt. Commander Halton. I have a few questions to ask before the debriefing tomorrow."

Despite herself, Carol feels a wave of annoyance. She's tired, in pain, and she's already spoken at length with a JAG officer a few hours ago. Surely anything else they need from her can wait until tomorrow.

As if he can sense her mood, Lt. Commander Halton says, "I apologize for bothering you now. This won't take long."

From the corner of her eye Carol sees that Spock hasn't moved, his head tilted in her direction. His scrutiny is intensely embarrassing, having him overhear what she suspects will be thinly veiled suggestions that she was in league with her father.

She braces herself and waits. Sure enough, the first question confirms her suspicion.

"Dr. Marcus, you stated that you were aware of your father's research until several weeks ago when he abruptly cut off your access. Do you have any hard evidence that corroborates this?"

"I don't take your meaning," Carol says. "Hard evidence that my access was restricted?"

"Exactly," Lt. Commander Halton says, nodding.

"I'm not sure what that would be," Carol says. "It's not like he sent me a note saying I was no longer able to follow his work. I just found that I couldn't open any of his weapons files, and when I tried to trace the problem, I couldn't get in touch with him."

"So you have nothing which proves your lack of access?"

"I just told you," Carol says, more than a hint of exasperation in her voice, "that he never told me that I was no longer welcome to the information. I was just cut off."

"And when you asked him why—"

Carol takes a step back and lands hard on her knee. Wincing, she says, "Aren't you listening—"

"Dr. Marcus has already indicated that Admiral Marcus did not explain his restriction on the weapons files," Spock says. "If your intention is to imply that she worked with her father on their implementation, then your question violates the parameters of a simple debriefing and is now in the territory of a preliminary investigative hearing. If so, then Dr. Marcus is entitled to have counsel present."

As astonished as Carol is at Spock's intervention, the JAG officer seems more so. His mouth twitches and he shifts uneasily.

"Very well," Lt. Commander Halton says. Without another word he pivots sharply and heads back the way he came.

As soon as he disappears at the end of the hall, Carol turns to Spock but her throat is so tight that she can hardly speak. Swallowing hard, she blinks and says, "Thank you, Mr. Spock. I wanted to tell you…I know I'm not making any sense, but I need to tell you…that I'm sorry—"

She watches his face carefully as she sputters and strains to speak. He's as reserved and composed as always—until he isn't. A flicker of something Carol can't name crosses his expression.

"Dr. Marcus," he says, his face once again settling into an impassive mask, "perhaps you should rest. It has been a long day. And tomorrow promises to be challenging as well."

Without waiting for a reply, Spock steps away from her toward the captain's room. For a moment he stands and watches the whirlwind of medics, McCoy at their center, and then he turns and passes her on his way out.

Watching him go, Carol feels both grateful and bereft—his unexpected words of support surprising her even as she feels unworthy of them.

X X

When Carol's comm chimes, she picks it up from the bedside table and glances down to confirm what she already knows, that her mother is calling. She doesn't answer it but lets the message go to the queue. Since her father's private memorial service a month ago, her mother has called at least once a day, her worry both endearing and annoying.

"I will be fine," Carol told her the last time they spoke. "I'm sure this is just as hard for you."

At some level Carol knows this isn't true. Her mother grieved the loss of Alexander Marcus years ago, first when Starfleet took him off-planet for months at a time, and finally when she admitted that he was absent in every way that mattered and divorced him.

Carol, on the other hand, had joined Starfleet and specialized in weapons partly because it meant she could stay in her father's life in a way that now seems like a fool's errand.

The comm chimes again and she ignores it. Not many people have her civilian comm number. Her mother, her aunt. The take-out deli on the corner—and only because she's become such a regular customer since leaving Starfleet that they call if they haven't heard from her in a couple of days.

She should probably get up. Looking around the bedroom at the clothes strewn in the floor, Carol considers getting a shower and something to eat. It's almost noon—later than anyone should be allowed to sleep.

This is what depression looks like, she thinks idly, like someone observing a science experiment gone awry. An unemployed woman moping around in pajamas all day.

The comm chimes yet again and with a sigh Carol picks it up.

Commander Spock's name appears on the ID.

How'd he get this number? She'd surrendered her service comm when she'd resigned her commission—and then realized too late that she'd also lost most of her contact information for her friends and colleagues. Almost no one has tried to track her down. She doesn't blame them for staying away, not really. No one wants to ask what everyone wants to know. _Were you part of your father's plan?_

It's the question that keeps potential employers at bay, the question that drove her from Starfleet.

On the day she resigned, Carol didn't recognize any of the officers in the meeting room at Headquarters, but she wasn't sure if that was a good omen or not. No one made eye contact as she hobbled down the aisle toward the row of chairs facing a long desk.

Spock was already seated, the only person Carol recognized. Settling into a seat next to him, she said softly, "Before I was discharged from the hospital this morning, Dr. McCoy told me that the captain seems stable. I thought you'd want to know."

"I have spoken to Dr. McCoy already," Spock said. Carol felt at once abashed and foolish; her cheeks grew hot. Of course Spock would have checked up on the captain.

A maritime chime sounded—0900—and three officers filed into the room and proceeded to the front where they settled behind the desk. The oldest by far was one Carol recognized—Admiral Nakamura, whose pioneering space flights earned her a place in the history books. The other two were rear admirals, the plates on the desk identifying them as Omotoso and Garner.

Admiral Nakamura spoke first.

"Dr. Marcus, we have read your account of your understanding of the weapons program overseen by Admiral Marcus and directed through Section 31. For the record, you state that you were unaware that the long-range torpedoes being developed were intended as a deliberate provocation of Klingon hostilities?"

"I had no knowledge that my…of what Admiral Marcus' intentions were. I just knew that the weapons specifications were classified."

"Were you aware that Admiral Marcus's collaboration with Section 31 was not sanctioned by the Admiralty?"

Carol swallowed. Admiral Nakamura's face was as hard to read as Spock's, her expression carefully neutral.

"Until yesterday," Carol said, "I was unaware of Section 31."

Rear Admiral Omotoso leaned forward on the desk and said, "In your private conversations with your father, he never mentioned it?"

Something in the man's face suggested he was skeptical, that he would not believe her if she denied it. Carol's heart sank.

"As I stated," she said, "I knew nothing about it."

Was this how it was always going to be? Under a cloud of suspicion, never fully trusted again?

And Starfleet—internally fractured by differing visions of its mission—the pragmatists like her father opposed to resources for pure science, the scientists dismissive of the military's concerns?

At the end of the desk Admiral Garner shifted in his seat and said, "Commander Spock, we asked you here today to go over your report about Dr. Marcus' behavior on the _Enterprise_."

For a moment Carol was so stunned that she didn't breathe. So_._ This _was _an investigation—a hearing—and not a simple debriefing. Part of her was relieved. From the moment she'd forged her father's name on the transfer manifest she knew this day was coming.

At another level she was horrified that she'd pulled anyone else into it. Now Spock would be forced to testify against her.

"As you wish, Admiral," Spock said.

"In your report you state that Dr. Marcus falsely presented herself as a member of the crew."

"Because she was concerned about the secrecy surrounding the long-range torpedoes."

"That is your conjecture," Admiral Garner said, his voice flat.

"Incorrect," Spock said swiftly. "Dr. Marcus told both Captain Kirk and me that she became alarmed when her previous open access to the weapons research was halted."

As if he didn't hear him, Admiral Garner continued.

"Furthermore, when you confronted her with your discovery that her transfer was falsified, she asked you to keep that information from your superiors. Is that correct?"

Suddenly Carol could see where this line of questioning would lead. Because he didn't report her immediately, Spock left his own performance open to criticism.

"Admiral—" Carol said, but Admiral Garner held up one hand to silence her.

"And you did as she asked, kept her secret from your captain?"

"Admiral," Carol said, her voice ringing around the room, "the _Enterprise_ experienced a warp malfunction that took the Commander's attention. He can't be blamed for not reporting me earlier—"

"Dr. Marcus also put your medical doctor in harm's way when she attempted to disarm one of the torpedoes," Admiral Garner said. At her side, Carol felt Spock react.

"Dr. Marcus' quick thinking disarmed that same torpedo," he said evenly, "and ultimately exposed Khan and the Augments for what they are."

Admiral Garner leaned back and pulled his hands off the table, glancing at the other two admirals as he did. Some unspoken signal seemed to pass between them, and then Admiral Nakamura said, "Dr. Marcus, we realize that you have suffered a personal loss and in no way mean to minimize it with our inquiry about your father. While some of your actions were questionable, we are not prepared at this time to open an investigation. Until further notice, you are dismissed."

That was it? Carol felt a cascade of emotions roiling over her—relief first and then anger and grief. _Until further notice_. Not a full reprieve but a warning that she would be watched from now on.

And worse, that she'd damaged the reputations of Captain Kirk and Commander Spock—or at least raised the specter of suspicion around them.

Taking a deep breath, Carol got to her feet.

"Admiral," she said, and all three looked in her direction. "I want to state for the record here and now that I accept full responsibility for all of my actions, including asking Commander Spock to hide my identity and putting Dr. McCoy in danger."

She sensed rather than saw Spock rising from his chair and she hurried on to keep him from saying anything else in her defense and possibly hurting his own career.

"I also want to apologize for being unable to stop the attack on the _Enterprise_," she said. Turning to Spock, she said, "I know you will disagree, but I should have been able to reach my father…and I couldn't. I didn't know what to say or how to make him hear me. And I should have known. I'm his daughter, and I should have known."

Turning back to the three admirals, Carol continued.

"That's why after due consideration I have decided to resign my commission. At this point I don't believe that Starfleet has a place for me, nor do I believe I will be effective here after what has happened."

For a beat, then two, no one said a word. If Admiral Nakamura had protested that Carol was making a rash decision, if she had counseled waiting until the shock of recent events had started to wane, Carol might have been persuaded to retract her resignation. The Admiral's silence, however, spoke loudly.

"If you are sure," Admiral Nakamura said at last, and Carol nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak without her voice breaking.

Leonard McCoy sought her out a few days later, trying to talk her into changing her mind.

And Spock. She saw him the afternoon she stopped by the Academy to drop off some of her research files for a logistics instructor in the computer simulation department. As she rounded a corner she almost ran into him, his gray instructor's uniform telling her how he would spend the hiatus until the _Enterprise_ was repaired and rechristened.

"Dr. Marcus," he said, eyeing her civilian clothing with undisguised disapproval—or at least it felt that way to her. "I have made multiple attempts to communicate with you."

"Oh?" Carol said as innocently as she could. Of course she knew he had sent messages to her mail queue and her comm line, but she had deleted them all without reading them. She was sure what he would say—that she was making a mistake, that she didn't need to blame herself for the actions of her father.

She really didn't want to hear it again.

Without letting him continue, she swiveled around and hurried in the other direction.

Now he apparently has her new comm number. Her comm continues to chime as she stares down at it in her hand.

"Not today," she says, putting it back on the bedside table. She lies back down and covers her head with a pillow.

She isn't certain how long she's there before the comm chimes again. Uncharacteristically losing her temper, she sits up, throwing the pillow off the bed.

"Dammit!" she says, picking up her comm.

But it isn't chiming after all. Staring at it stupidly for a moment, Carol realizes that the chiming noise is coming from her front door.

She hasn't ordered anything. She isn't expecting anyone. With a sigh, she sits up and slides off the bed.

"Coming!" she calls, grabbing her bathrobe and slipping in her arms as she makes her way from the bedroom.

The door continues to chime as Carol undoes a series of locks and safeties.

"This better be important," she says as she swings it open. There framed by the doorway is Lt. Uhura wearing a red uniform, her hair pulled up in a ponytail.

"It is," Lt. Uhura says. "Unless you help me, a lot of people are going to die."

**A/N: We're off! I've been on a hiatus of sorts this summer, but I'm back with another story I hope you enjoy. Let me know if you do!**


	2. Request and Quest

**Chapter Two: Request and Quest**

**Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. All I own is the mischief.**

"Here you go," the waiter says as he leans over Carol's shoulder and sets a bowl onto the middle of the table. "Bon appetit."

Carol glances down at what appears to be a bowl of dried tapeworms. Cutting her eyes up at Lt. Uhura, she sees her watching for a reaction.

Well, let her wait, Carol thinks, keeping her face carefully neutral. The British _invented_ the stiff upper lip.

"What is it?" she says, and the lieutenant picks up one of the…things…and places it on Carol's plate.

"Summer snow slugs," she says, picking up another and taking a bite. "A delicacy on Andoria."

Carol eyes her warily and sighs, doubly sorry she agreed to this meal. An hour ago she had been comfortably cocooned in her bed until Lt. Uhura showed up at her door, telling her they needed to talk.

"I've never tried Andorian food," Carol says, taking an experimental nibble of the slug. The taste is not unpleasant but not particularly appealing, either. Acquired, perhaps? The lieutenant seems to enjoy it.

"Do you know any Andorians?" Lt. Uhura asks.

"No," Carol says, feeling both annoyed and baffled at the random chitchat. "I'm sorry, lieutenant, but I don't see what this has to do with anything. You said you had something important to tell me. If this was just a…_ruse_…to get me up and out—"

Something flickers in Lieutenant Uhura's expression. Taking a deep breath, she appears to come to some sort of decision.

"I'm not trying to waste your time," she says, and for a moment Carol wonders if she is being sarcastic—or at least being wry. Carol's disheveled appearance when Uhura had rung the bell earlier—and the evident disorder in the apartment—were evidence Carol was wasting time well enough without any help.

But Lt. Uhura looks at her closely with an intensity that suggests she is being serious.

"No, of course not," Carol says. "But I don't see what Andorian food has to do with—"

"Two weeks ago," Lt. Uhura says, interrupting her, "Commander Spock was asked to take over the class schedule of an Andorian language professor at the Academy who had to return home suddenly. Professor Artura. I was his aide my last semester before—"

She doesn't finish the sentence but Carol can guess what she means—_before the Starfleet Academy cadets were called suddenly to duty during the attack on Vulcan._ The majority of the graduating class had died that day. That the lieutenant is still alive is the result of some cosmic roll of the dice putting her on the _Enterprise_, the only cadet-crewed ship that returned home reasonably intact.

Largely because of Jim Kirk. Before she ever met him, Carol had read the reports detailing the reasons for his astonishing promotion to captain of the _Enterprise_. Thinking about how she deceived him to get aboard the ship, how he's still critically ill, twists her stomach in knots.

She parts her lips to say something—_I'm sorry_, or _I understand_—but the magnitude of so much suffering leaves her mute. Instead, she nods.

Lt. Uhura continues.

"Professor Artura is part of the T'hulia clan—"

"Clan?"

"Andorian society is organized by extended family units," the lieutenant says. "For centuries the clans have engaged in blood feuds against each other. If a member of one clan is attacked, his family retaliates in force. Whole clans have been wiped out for the transgressions of a single member. Professor Artura lost his wife and daughter to a feud years ago. That's why he left Andoria, to try to escape that cycle of revenge."

Carol picks up the cup of water at her elbow and takes a sip.

"You said Commander Spock has taken over his classes?"

"Professor Artura's clan leader died a few weeks ago," Lt. Uhura says, "making him the head of his family. He had to return to Andoria to lead the memorial service and take care of other family matters."

"But what does this have to do with me—"

"The T'hulian clan leader didn't just die—he was _killed_ in a missile attack," Lt. Uhura says. "Andorian blood feuds are carried out in hand-to-hand combat. It violates their code of honor to attack a clan remotely or with technology. Yet this appears to be the work of one of the rival clans."

"Then someone is being dishonorable," Carol says. "I still don't see how this involves me."

"Since you are a weapons expert," the lieutenant says, "you can trace the origins of the missiles. The wreckage has been preserved—"

"Oh, no," Carol says swiftly, anger making her voice break. "I'm not getting drawn into this. I find out which clan is responsible for the attack and your professor orders retaliation. I'll not have more deaths on my conscience."

She pulls her napkin from her lap and tosses it to the table, scooting her chair back and standing up.

"Wait!" Lt. Uhura says. "Professor Artura wouldn't do that! He returned home to keep the feud from escalating. He's…committed…to a different philosophy. Ever since he lost his own family, he's been a critic of Andorian tradition. That's why he left Andoria, why he lived for a time on Vulcan—to master his impulse for revenge. It's why he works here, Dr. Marcus, instead of returning to his own people. You have to believe me when I say that Professor Artura would not ask for your help to cause more harm. Neither would Commander Spock nor I. We…know…how distressed you have been because of…everything."

Taking a breath, Carol sits down slowly. At least she can hear the lieutenant out.

"Then what do you want from me?"

"The missile," Lt. Uhura says, "is supposed to _look_ like it came from another clan, but the Professor thinks off-worlders are trying to provoke a blood feud for their own purposes."

It's not unheard of. Carol can think of examples in history of agitators instigating civil wars and then swooping in to take over resources or land when all sides had killed each other off.

She looks up and sees the lieutenant watching her.

"And you want me to help him prove that the missiles are not of Andorian origin?"

"Yes," Lt. Uhura nods.

"And what if they are? What if I prove that another clan did, indeed, launch them? What then? I'll be responsible for starting a war."

"Professor Artura gives his assurance that the blood feud stops with him."

"You're incredibly trusting of this professor," Carol says, and the lieutenant's expression shifts and becomes unreadable.

"For very good reasons, Dr. Marcus," she says. "There's no one I trust more."

Carol almost blurts out a protest.

_All well and good for you to say. I don't even know him._

But something in Lt. Uhura's expression stops her, a fierceness that goes beyond mere conviction.

With a sigh, Carol says, "So what do I do? You said the wreckage from the attack had been preserved. You wouldn't happen to have it on hand, would you?"

"Professor Artura sent 3-D scans today," Lt. Uhura says. "You can look at those."

Carol shakes her head.

"To do the kind of detailed analysis you want, I'd need a high proficiency reader like the one I had in the weapons lab at Starfleet. In case you haven't noticed," she says, lifting one eyebrow, "I don't exactly have a security clearance anymore. I can't just go traipsing in to use their equipment."

The lieutenant's face falls a fraction.

"I know," she says. "Commander Spock tried to get your access reinstated. He was unsuccessful."

Carol isn't surprised, but the news stings nonetheless. A pariah, indeed. She needs to get used to the feeling.

Getting to her feet, she says, "Well, that's that. Without the reader, the scans won't do anyone any good. I'm sorry you went to all this trouble, Lieutenant. Good luck."

As she turns away, she hears Lt. Uhura calling her back.

"There's another possibility. Commander Spock thinks he might be able to modify a portable reader to meet your specifications. He's rounding up the parts he needs right now. He'll contact you as soon as it's ready."

"He'll contact me?"

"When it's ready," Lt. Uhura says.

"He was pretty sure I'd say yes," Carol says, a note of accusation in her voice. She can't help but frown at being outmaneuvered.

"Not at all." The ghost of a smile turns up Lt. Uhura's mouth. "Commander Spock thought there was only a 92.49% chance that you would agree to help. That's why he sent me to ask instead of coming himself. Apparently I'm more _approachable_."

At that the lieutenant flashes a genuine smile and Carol returns it despite herself.

"Well played," she says. "Very well, then. I'll wait until I hear from him."

She turns once more to leave.

"What about your lunch?" Lt. Uhura asks.

"Actually," Carol says, eyeing the bowl of summer snow slugs, "I'm not very hungry—and I have a busy afternoon planned, reading up on Andorian weaponry."

X X

Carol glances down at her comm and rereads the address listed in the message from Commander Spock. Then she glances up at the building in front of her. A fixture over the door lights up the street number.

No, she hasn't made a mistake. This is the right place.

Carol's lived in San Francisco since she was a teenager but she's never paid much attention to the buildings near the Vulcan embassy before. Stark, certainly, the architecture deliberately spare, yet elegant all the same. This particular apartment building has a façade of black brick and glass that reflects the hill rising up from the bay.

Not the digs she would have expected from a Starfleet officer, not even a full Commander. Perhaps Spock has family money?

She presses the door chime. A buzz and then an audible _snick_ as the latch pulls back.

Pushing open the door and stepping into the entryway, Carol is struck again at the simple design, how everything—from a small table against one wall to the curled wire light fixture hanging from the dark blue ceiling—looks planned and arranged.

Like _Ikebana_, Japanese flower arranging, something her mother wanted her to learn once upon a time—back when her mother thought she might offer some civilizing contrast to her daughter's fascination with weapons.

Directly ahead in the entryway a door opens. Lt. Uhura—dressed in tapered pants and a fuzzy knit sweater—waves her forward.

Before she has time to wonder why the lieutenant is here—and out of uniform—Carol sees Spock in the room behind her. He's draped in a black _ruana_—or a Vulcan version of one, with some sort of runes embroidered along one edge. Seeing the two of them here—in civilian clothes—is unsettling somehow. Something to consider later, Carol thinks, following the lieutenant inside.

"Dr. Marcus," Spock says, looking up from a bulky boxlike contraption sitting on a polished wood table. "I have your scan reader."

As she makes her way across the room, Carol takes note of the sleek furniture, the abstract paintings on the walls, a piece of sculpture in one corner, artifacts that imply a lifetime of careful collecting.

"Your apartment is lovely, Commander," she says, stepping up to the table.

"This is the residence of the Vulcan ambassador," Spock says. "He will be in Paris for the foreseeable future while the Federation is in session."

Her face must give her away, a quizzical look she doesn't try to hide. Lt. Uhura says, "Ambassador Sarek is the Commander's father."

That's a surprise—although to be fair, Carol doesn't really know the Commander, or Lt. Uhura, or Captain Kirk—or anyone from the _Enterprise_. She'd only been a member of the crew for a few hours, a nervous stowaway, before—

The images of her father, of Khan—of the debris still being cleared from the waterfront—force Carol to do a mental sidestep.

_I will not think about this now_, she says. It is her mantra these days.

"You said you had some scans to show me?"

Spock leans forward and taps a screen on the box. A holographic image of a reassembled torpedo appears in the air above it. With another tap of the screen, Spock makes it turn slowly counter-clockwise twice before it is again still.

"Well, it's definitely Andorian," Carol says, pointing to the markings along the dorsal stabilizer. "And this model of torpedo is easy to acquire. The information I found about the Andorian military shows they have a large inventory of exactly this kind."

"Could the government be responsible for the attack?" Lt. Uhura asks, but before Carol can speculate, Spock answers.

"Professor Artura has questioned the authorities. They deny any involvement."

"That doesn't mean they didn't launch it," Carol says, but Spock shakes his head.

"The government would have nothing to gain by setting one clan against another."

"Perhaps one clan bribed the government officials," Lt. Uhura says.

"Unlikely," Spock says, and then before the lieutenant can reply, he adds, "though not impossible. However, until we have evidence to the contrary, we should proceed with Professor Artura's assurance that the government is not the responsible party."

For the next half hour, Carol goes through the scans as carefully as the juryrigged reader will allow, peeling back the layers of information one by one, checking each bit of information against what she knows about Andorian torpedoes.

No red flags, nothing unusual or suspicious—until she calls up the molecular level.

"Wait!" she says, magnifying the exhaust changer for traces of the energy trail. "This isn't right."

Leaning back, she motions Spock to the reader.

"See," Carol says. "This should show normal propulsion debris. All torpedoes—all _fired_ torpedoes—show that trail. This one doesn't."

"This is the torpedo that killed the clan leader," Spock says, "several kilometers inside an armed compound. Witnesses report seeing it as it descended. The security logs and surveillance cameras have recorded it."

His tone suggests that she must be mistaken, that his data trumps hers. But Carol knows what she knows. This torpedo may have detonated on impact, but it was never fired. She tells him so.

For a moment neither one says anything. Then Lt. Uhura says, "Could it have been _dropped_ onto the compound?"

"The air defenses around the clan compounds are extensive," Spock says, "and highly effective. Any aircraft delivering a torpedo would have been seen—and likely shot down."

Lt. Uhura frowns and says, "Then what about beaming it there? You know, into the airspace over the compound? As it fell, it would look like it had been launched the normal way."

"There's no record of a transporter signal," Carol says, "on the security logs. And I don't know any kind of transporter that can't be tracked."

From the corner of her eye Carol sees Spock react—and a moment later, Lt. Uhura's face lights up as something unspoken flickers between them.

"A transwarp transporter relay could disguise a point of origin," Spock says, and Carol resists the impulse to roll her eyes. Transwarp beaming is the holy grail of transporter technology—and like the mythical grail, just as elusive.

"_If_ such a thing existed, possibly," she says.

Again Spock and Uhura seem to share some wordless information, though Carol is hard-pressed to explain why she thinks so. Something about their posture, the way they make eye contact?

"It does," Spock says, "though the specifications are classified."

Carol feels her jaw drop. Transwarp beaming has the potential to completely remake the universe. If transporting could be done over large distances, starships would be obsolete. Exploration would become routine. Resources could be shared more widely.

And more easily stolen. Warfare could become more deadly. Crime could become easier to hide.

"You're joking," she says, and Spock replies, "I do not joke, Dr. Marcus."

_Is Lt. Uhura smirking? _

Taking a deep breath, Carol says, "Then tell me what you know."

Instead of answering, Commander Spock switches off the scan reader and starts toward the front door, Lt. Uhura in his wake.

"Where are we going?" Carol calls as she hurries to catch up.

"To where distilled and fermented beverages are sold and served," Spock says, stopping to pull the door closed behind them. "To find our transporter expert."

**A/N: First, apologies for so much exposition. Second chapters are always the hardest—and the least reviewed—because they require lots of "stuff" to get the plot moving in the right direction. Thanks for sticking with this nonetheless! Double thanks if you leave a review!**

**Second, thanks to everyone who recommended this story to friends. I've heard from several people that Carol Marcus stories get few readers, so thanks for spreading the love. And rest assured, the other crew members make appearances in the next chapters.**

**Professor Artura is an OC who appears in many of my Academy stories. He was a bit of an annoyance to Spock when they worked together in the language department, but he proved his worth later in "People Will Say." His back story and the description of his wife and daughter are there in chapter six.**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions for how to make this story better! She's been busy over in Marvel land writing terrific Loki stories, and she's taken the step of branching out from fanfiction to original stories featuring Loki in her own created Norse universe. Part One is posted on FF and is listed in my faves as "I Bring the Fire." **


	3. Search and Research

**Chapter Three: Search and Research**

**Disclaimer: No money being made here. Drats.**

The retro music from the bar is so loud that Carol can feel the bass all the way out on the street. Putting a hand to one ear and tilting his head, Commander Spock visibly balks at the door. Despite herself, Carol almost laughs. So those ears aren't just decorative?

Darting a glance in his direction, Lieutenant Uhura says, "Here, I'll go in," and slips inside before either Spock or Carol can offer to help. She reappears less than a minute later shaking her head.

Wordlessly the trio makes their way past the pier to the next bar, one even larger and louder than the first.

Again the lieutenant goes inside alone—and again she returns empty-handed.

"This isn't going to work," Carol says, tired and ready to go home. Lt. Uhura pulls out her comm and dials. _Nothing._ Looking over her shoulder, Spock says, "Either Mr. Scott cannot answer, or he does not wish to."

Lt. Uhura snorts softly—and then grins.

"Keenser!" she says, tapping in another number on her comm, and Carol remembers the Roylan assistant engineer who left the _Enterprise_ in protest with Mr. Scott. She'd barely had time to introduce herself before they were gone, Mr. Scott rightly alarmed about the secrecy surrounding the long-range torpedoes developed by Section 31. Apparently he and Keenser are often together during their free time as well - when Keenser answers his comm, he says Scotty is with him at Moe's.

Unlike the bars along the waterfront, Moe's has no music at all. The only sound other than the quiet talk of patrons comes from a news holovid mounted over the bar. One wall is lined with wooden booths. Worn octagonal tables and low-backed chairs fill the rest of the space.

Carol knows it well. The closest bar to the Academy, it is a favorite of cadets and instructors. Occasionally medical personnel still in scrubs stop in for a drink when they get off duty from the Starfleet hospital across the street.

Tonight Moe's is almost empty. As Carol follows Spock and Uhura inside, she spots Scotty and Keenser at a far table. Neither looks happy to see them, though Keenser's gray cobblestone face reminds Carol so much of an oyster that she finds him hard to read.

"Forgive the intrusion, Mr. Scott," Spock says as Uhura pulls out a chair and sits beside the engineer.

"Why haven't you answered your messages?" Uhura says, her voice a contradiction of gentle scolding and soothing motherliness. "Didn't you get them?"

"Oh, I got them alright." By contrast, Scotty's voice is angry barbed wire. "I'm sorry, Commander," he says, darting a glance up at Spock, "but Starfleet didn't ask my opinion about making my transwarp equation classified, so I'm not interested in giving them my opinion about who might have stolen it."

"Starfleet is not asking for your input," Spock says. "The request is mine."

Carol sees Scotty starting to reply but he catches sight of her before he does.

"Then why is she here?" he says, hooking his thumb in her direction.

Being spoken of in the third person this way infuriates her. At some level Carol knows she is probably over-reacting, that Mr. Scott has a legitimate grievance with Starfleet. But so does she, dammit. So does everyone.

"I'm not a member of Starfleet anymore," she says. "And I'm just as unhappy about talking to you as you are about talking to me."

_There. _ Now she's got his attention. Mr. Scott swivels slowly in his chair and gives her a jaundiced look.

"I guess that makes us even, then," he says. Lifting his half-empty glass in the air, he calls out, "Danny! A round of drinks for the table, please!"

For a moment Carol stands immobile, but when Spock sits down, she pulls out a chair and settles into it.

"Did you read my note?" Lt. Uhura says, and Scott says, "Yes! I mean, no! I'm on hiatus. _Forced_ hiatus, I might add, the addled brainchild of some barmy Starfleet psychologist thinking I might need some time to…what did he call it…decompress. Decompress! If that means drinking and reading engineering manuals, I'm all for it. But they have some idea that I need to come in every other day and talk. Nothing happened to me that didn't happen to every other poor sod on the _Enterprise_, so I don't know why I get special treatment."

As he talks his eyes roam around the room and his finger traces wide circles in the condensation on the table. Lt. Uhura leans toward him and places her hand on his shoulder.

"It's not a bad idea Scotty," she says. "Taking some time off—"

"Okay, I know!" he says. "It's a good idea. So why are you interrupting my time off, tell me that?"

This obviously isn't going well. Carol doesn't know Mr. Scott, has only seen him closely a few times, and each time he was agitated or upset.

But she senses that his mood tonight is something new—not simply a prickly temperament or even a response to what is going on here and now but something deeper, borne out of some secret sorrow that she isn't privy to.

Feeling movement at her elbow, Carol looks up and sees a waiter carrying a small round tray with several glasses on it. He sets one in front of her and makes his way around the table, placing the rest of the glasses on it. When he gets to Commander Spock, he hesitates a moment before placing the last glass beside him and then hurrying off.

"Drink up," Mr. Scott says, lifting his glass to his lips. "My treat. And then when you finish, you can bugger off."

Lt. Uhura gives Commander Spock a look.

Taking a deep breath, Carol jumps in.

"Gladly," she says, taking a sip of her drink. Scotch—not her preferred beverage, but it will do. She takes another taste before setting her glass back on the table. "I didn't want to get dragged into this either."

"Exactly!" Scott says. "We're off duty, some of us permanently. So state your business and leave. _Sir_," he adds pointedly to Spock.

He's so close to being disrespectful that Carol rushes on before Spock can censure him.

"It's just," Carol says, frantically casting about for how to catch Mr. Scott's attention, "this _thing_, this terrible _thing_—"

Mr. Scott puts down his glass and leans forward. _She's got him._ Carol breathes a little sigh of relief.

"Terrible thing? I thought this was about transwarp beaming."

"You're the only one who can tell," she says. "You see, there's this professor on Andoria—"

For the next twenty minutes Carol relates everything she remembers about Professor Artura, blood feuds, and clan loyalties, ending with her description of the scans and the possibility that the deadly torpedo had been beamed into the family compound. Both Spock and Uhura chime in from time to time—Spock with corrections and Uhura with details—but they seem to sense that Mr. Scott's cooperation depends on whatever connection he's made with Carol, letting her do most of the talking.

"We wondered," she says, "if an outsider—someone not on Andoria—could have sent this torpedo and hidden its origin with a transwarp pad. If a relay could have been set up from somewhere distant—"

"Even so," Scotty says, his hand rubbing his chin, "the transporter signal would have alerted any defense system in the compound. The starting point might be disguised, but you can't hide a beam once it trips the booster alert."

"So this didn't originate somewhere off-planet," Carol says carefully. Scotty shakes his head.

"Impossible to completely rule that out. Before I was put on _hiatus_," he says, spitting out the word, "I had a little disagreement with the Fleet engineers about the range of an enhanced torpedo like the ones your—like the ones Section 31 designed. Someone let slip the idea that the Romulans have the technology to launch an extremely long-range smart torpedo—even planet to planet—without transwarp beam relays. I wouldn't know, though. That information's been _classified._"

He punctuates his last word by draining the rest of his glass.

"You know, Dr. Marcus," he says, tilting his head back and looking at her through half-shut eyes, "when we start keeping more secrets than we share, we're in trouble. I don't know if I want to serve in a Starfleet that works that way. What we've done—what I did—is shameful enough. All those people who died on that bloody ship. The man in the hangar I had to—"

He stops abruptly and shuts his eyes briefly before squaring his shoulders. From the corner of her eye Carol sees both Spock and Uhura sitting mute and still, reluctant to break the spell. Keenser is as immobile as stone.

"I think I understand," Carol says, reaching out and placing her hand on Mr. Scott's forearm. "But you did what you had to do. We all did. A hiatus might be a good idea right now, actually. To get some distance and stop…blaming…ourselves."

Brave words, far braver than she really feels. Mr. Scott looks down at his empty glass.

For several moments no one speaks, the only noise coming from a newscaster on the holovid giving tomorrow's weather report.

"Aye, well, that's the thing, isn't it?" Scotty says at last, and Carol feels her eyes tear up.

He raises his hand and motions to the bartender for another drink.

"So where're you off to now, Doctor?" Scott says, but Spock is the one who answers.

"Mr. Scott, are you certain that the Romulans are the ones rumored to be developing inter-planetary weaponry?"

"That's the word at Starfleet," Mr. Scott says, "but you'd have better luck asking the Vulcans since it's _classified_. If anyone's watching the Romulans, the Vulcans are. But you know that, Sir."

If Scott isn't drunk, he's close. Spock and Uhura exchange another of those unspoken communications Carol observed earlier.

The waiter sidles up with Scott's drink.

"Thank 'e, laddie," Scott says. "Go ahead and bring me another. I'm expecting company."

From across the table Keenser motions with his hand and Carol turns to see what he is pointing to.

To her horror, she sees Jim Kirk standing on unsteady feet just inside the doorway. Even in the dim light of the bar she can see that he is unusually pale, his lips swollen and chapped, his eyes bloodshot. He looks like a man back from the dead, which, of course, he is. Carol's stomach gives a lurch - the unfamiliar scotch, or more likely, her guilt about why he is in this condition.

"James T. Kirk!" Mr. Scott calls, and the captain gives a weak smile and starts toward them.

Of all the people she doesn't want to see, Jim Kirk is at the top of the list. There's too much to say, too much to apologize for. Including this—his shaky walk across the bar.

Spock is on his feet and Lieutenant Uhura rushes across the room to take the captain's arm.

"Should you be here?" she says as she herds him into the chair she vacated. "When were you released from the hospital?"

"I wasn't," he says, giving a ghost of a grin. "I gave my keepers the slip. They'll figure it out in a little while and come looking."

"You've done this before?" Uhura says, and Kirk's grin widens.

"Don't tell anyone," he says. "How are you, Scotty? Thanks for the invite."

Turning his fever-bright blue eyes on her, Kirk says, "Dr. Marcus. I heard you resigned. I need to talk to you about that."

"Yes, well," Carol says, "some time we'll have to do that. I have to go now, though. Something's come up. Goodnight, all."

As she stands and heads away she hears the captain say, "Something I said?"

Even before she steps into the chilly outside air, Carol shivers. Tugging her thin sweater tighter, she starts down the sidewalk and looks up to see two security officers from the hospital heading for Moe's.

Well, that's a relief. Jim Kirk needs to be in bed, recovering, not gallivanting about with his friends. He looks far too gaunt, too wiped out by the radiation and its aftermath, to be out and about - not at all like the man she had teased for having a reputation.

On the other hand, his crew might be what he needs right now. People who understand him, who care about him. Who will keep him from feeling so alone. _Family_.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Carol stops and turns.

"Excuse me!" she calls, and the officers—a dark-skinned man and an older woman—stop. "If you are looking for Captain Kirk, he just left. I think I heard him say he was going to that bar down by the waterfront. The new one, the one with the retro band."

Carol can see them hesitating, deciding whether or not to take her word for it.

"I'm Carol Wallace," she says, opening her purse. "_Dr._ Wallace. I work with Dr. Leonard McCoy. I can show you some identification if you need it. I was having a drink with friends when we saw the captain come in. I think we spooked him. I'm so sorry! It wasn't until after he left that we realized he probably shouldn't be wandering around outside the hospital at this hour—"

"If we hurry we can probably catch him," the woman security guard says, and without another word, they disappear into the night.

This doesn't come close to evening the score or squaring the account, but Carol sleeps better that night than she has in a long time.

**A/N: Thanks for being such a vocal, supportive fandom! I hope you are enjoying getting to know Carol Marcus as much as I am.**

**As always, your comments keep me going and help me become a better writer. Also thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her help. Check out her myth!Loki fiction called "I Bring the Fire" in my faves.  
**


	4. Traveling Companions

**Chapter Four: Traveling Companions**

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters nor make money from writing about them. Unfortunate, but true.**

The transport hub closest to Starfleet Academy is almost never empty, but as Carol Marcus checks the display for her departure, she has the eerie sense that she is one of the only people in the cavernous building. Of course, it _is_ 0300. Sensible people are at home asleep. Sensible people, not her.

Shifting her travel bag from her hand to her shoulder, she stifles a yawn. Leave it to Commander Spock to make such inconvenient travel plans for her. Do Vulcans even sleep? Carol tries to imagine the formidable Spock curled in a blanket. Nope. She can't.

She probably should have insisted on making her own arrangements, but it's too late now to whinge about it. Maybe she can sleep most of the way—it is a medical shuttle, after all, and should have reclining chairs and bunks. The trip to New Vulcan isn't that long—seven hours, eight if they run into one of the ion storms that dog the route around the Anciean Nebula. Not like the old days, when a trip to Vulcan was a mere galactic hop and skip.

She'd only visited Vulcan once as a teenager, a quick trip when her mother chaperoned a field trip for a group of biology students from the boarding school where she still works as a teacher. At the time Carol and her mother had been at increasing odds with each other—normal teenager tension, Carol realizes now—but it had felt momentous and ominous. What she remembers best from the trip was the pervasive unhappiness she and her mother had with each other. They sniped in private about everything: Carol's choice of friends, clothes, food. By the time they returned to Earth, Carol had already contacted her father and made arrangements to move to San Francisco.

With adult hindsight, Carol is sorry she didn't take advantage of her time on Vulcan. She turned down an afternoon excursion out to the L-Langon Mountains because a boy she had a crush on didn't want to go. She slept in one morning and missed the tour shuttle to the ancient city of Gol. If she had any extended conversations with Vulcans on that trip, she can't recall.

The mistakes of youth—but with a regret magnified by the destruction of Vulcan.

When Mr. Scott suggested at Moe's that the Vulcans might have information useful in tracking down the origins of the torpedoes, Carol assumed Commander Spock would contact his father and her own involvement in the mystery would be over. To her surprise, two days later he called her, asking her if she was willing to travel to New Vulcan to examine the readouts from the listening post there. Apparently Vulcans didn't trust their own encryption to keep such sensitive information secure over a transmission. The only way to examine the records was in person.

Her first instinct was to refuse. The trip was long, the outcome uncertain. She didn't know the Andorian professor involved or anyone on New Vulcan.

Yet she kept replaying Lt. Uhura's description of Andorian blood feuds in her mind. Her trip to New Vulcan might not save any lives, but if she didn't go, she'd never know.

And then there was that little matter of the trip to Vulcan as a teenager, the missed opportunity there. In an odd sort of way, this might be a way to make up for that.

Stifling another yawn, Carol slides her travel bag off her shoulder onto a cushioned bench near the shuttle gate. The display says that the shuttle is being refueled and will be ready to depart within the half hour. Sagging down onto the bench beside her bag, Carol sighs.

"Something wrong?"

The voice behind her is deep, gravelly, unmistakable.

"Dr. McCoy! "

Remembering her ruse a couple of days ago when Jim Kirk had shown up at Moe's, Carol squirms. She really should have turned the captain in, sent him back to the hospital instead of misdirecting the security guards looking for him. If Dr. McCoy knows about her part in that—

But he doesn't seem to. Grinning, he perches on the bench beside her.

"Fancy meeting you here," he says. "Where are you off to at this hour?"

"Just taking the shuttle to New Vulcan," she says, motioning toward the gate. Dr. McCoy's eyebrows fly up.

"My lucky day!" he says. "I'm heading there, too."

Of all the crew members on the _Enterprise_, Carol knows the doctor best. Or at least she's spent the most time with him. Something about saving his life when the torpedo explosion was imminent made her more comfortable with him than she would have been otherwise. And later when she helped unload the cryotubes and tucked Jim Kirk inside one, she'd felt an easy camaraderie with Dr. McCoy that surprised her.

Of course she doesn't ask him for details, she's far too reserved for that. When she doesn't, he offers them anyway.

"Going to get my dad," he says. "A few months ago he started showing signs of Ta'varish Syndrome and I read about some experimental research the Vulcans were doing. He's just finished treatment at the medical center in New Shi'Kahr."

"Oh!" Carol says, casting about for what she knows about Ta'varish Syndrome. Incurable and painful—that's all she remembers. She feels a spasm of sympathy for the doctor, facing the loss of his father.

'I'm so sorry!" she says, and Dr. McCoy looks past her into the distance. Then with a shake of his head, he says, "Yeah, well, it is what it is. We're hoping this new treatment will buy him some time."

For the next few minutes he tells her about his father. A noted surgeon, David McCoy had always wanted his son to follow him into medicine.

"I didn't even question it," Dr. McCoy says, his voice rough with emotion. "When I was a kid, I thought he could do no wrong. I would do anything to please him."

"I understand," Carol murmurs, thinking of her own father.

"How long are you going to be on New Vulcan?" Dr. McCoy asks, and Carol shakes her head.

"Not sure. I have a…project…I'm working on."

Commander Spock hasn't told her to keep her activities secret, but Carol would rather err on the side of caution.

"Then maybe my dad and I can take you to dinner before we head back. You'd like him."

"I've never met a David I didn't like," Carol says agreeably.

A faint susurration catches her attention and she looks around for its source. Coming across the way is a uniformed medical technician pushing a wheelchair. In the wheelchair is Jim Kirk, one hand in the air.

"Bones!" he calls. "You can't leave without me."

"The captain's going to be on this shuttle?"

Carol tries to keep the panic out of her voice, but if the doctor's reaction is any indication, she isn't successful.

"There's a Vulcan healer who's offered to teach Jim some Vulcan meditation," Dr. McCoy says, looking at her carefully. "Supposedly it will help speed up his recovery, but I'm skeptical. Jim Kirk meditating? I can't see it happening."

Carol feigns a laugh.

"That _is_ hard to imagine," she says.

By this time the technician has maneuvered the wheelchair to within a few yards.

"Dr. Marcus!" the captain says. "This must be my lucky day."

"I already tried that, Jim. She didn't buy it from me, either."

"Because when you said it," the captain says, "you were flirting. When I say it, I mean it."

'Yeah, right," the doctor says, but he catches Carol's eye and gives a ghost of a wink. _Humor him_, he seems to be saying. Carol returns an uncertain smile.

Up close the captain looks no better than he did two nights ago at Moe's. His pale skin has an unhealthy sheen to it; his eyes look sunken in the overhead light. When the technician adjusts the chair, Carol sees the captain wince—a fleeting grimace that disappears as soon as he notices her watching him.

"Perhaps you should reconsider going, Captain." If Captain Kirk is surprised at the implied intimacy of her words, Carol is more so. She hardly knows him, yet here she is being direct and familiar with him. Her face grows hot and she resists the impulse to cover her cheeks with her hands.

"I'm sorry!" she blurts out. "I don't mean to be presumptuous! It's just that you look rather spent right now—"

"You sound like Mr. Spock," the captain says with a weary-looking grin.

"Now you're just being insulting," McCoy says, standing up and shooing the medical technician out of the way. Stepping around behind the wheelchair, he presses a button and moves the chair toward the gate. "Come on," he calls over his shoulder. "They gotta let us go ahead and board now that we have an infant with us."

Grabbing her bag, Carol hurries to follow. Sure enough, when he reaches the closed gate, the doctor taps something into the wall panel and the gate opens.

From the corner of her eye, Carol sees Captain Kirk looking back at her, a lopsided smirk on his face.

"Stick with me and you'll go places," he says.

He's joking—Carol knows that—but she bristles nonetheless. Something about his breezy delivery, or the easy way he assumes she might welcome his advances—rubs her the wrong way.

"I was going places without your help, thank you very much," she says. The captain looks so wounded—his face falling, eyes blinking rapidly—that she's instantly sorry she snapped at him.

Dr. McCoy wheels him forward into the small utility shuttle with eight single seats along one side and four medical recliners on the other. He makes his way down the center aisle, leaning over to help the captain into the rearmost reclining seat.

For a moment Carol stands at the head of the aisle and considers. She could settle into one of the forward seats and try to pretend that the captain isn't here. On the other hand, she's not proud of dodging what feels like an increasingly necessary conversation. With a sigh, she stows her travel bag and sits in the chair closest to the captain.

"Look," she says as Dr. McCoy finishes adjusting the chair and moves away back up the aisle, "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I'm not usually a rude person. It's just that—"

"I bring out the worst in you," Captain Kirk finishes for her, grinning again.

"Of course not!" she says, flustered, realizing belatedly that he is again joking. "I mean, I've wanted to tell you for some time—"

An audible _snick_ overhead and the pilot's voice comes over the intercom telling the passengers to secure their safety harnesses. Sliding hers over her shoulders, Carol leans back as the noise of the liftoff makes talking impossible.

The shuttle bucks and swerves as it breaks free from Earth's gravity, something Carol normally doesn't pay much attention to, but this time she's watching the captain—his eyes pressed tightly closed, his lips pursed in obvious discomfort. In a few minutes the pressure eases and Kirk's eyes pop back open, his grin returning.

"Can I get you anything?" Carol says, motioning to the front of the shuttle where Dr. McCoy is seated talking to the medical technician. The captain shakes his head and says, "I'm good. Now what were you saying?"

Carol takes a breath.

"I'm not sure where to start, actually. I need to talk to you about several things."

She darts a glance and sees him waiting, his hands crossed over his chest.

"You see, I wouldn't have forged my transfer papers if I had known any other way—"

"That's right," Kirk says, lifting one finger and waving it at her, his voice in mock dismay. "You lied to me. Looked me in the eye and lied—not just about who sent you but about who you are. Not a good way to start a relationship, Dr. Marcus."

"We are not in a relationship!" Again her mouth rushes ahead faster than her brain. Of course he doesn't mean a personal relationship but a professional one. She blushes furiously at misunderstanding him.

"I mean, I know," she stammers. "It wasn't a good way to start…off…on the _Enterprise_. I've wanted to tell you for some time now that I'm sorry—"

"What really hurts," the captain says, feigning wounded dignity, "is that you lied to _me_ but you told _Spock_ the truth. And you asked him not to tell me—"

"Not you! My father. I asked him not to let my father know I was aboard."

"You didn't trust me with that information," he says, and Carol feels her cheeks on fire. It's true that she didn't trust the captain not to turn her in. Regulations would have required it.

But she didn't know him then like she does now—as the man willing to make a run for Earth when the attack ship had the _Enterprise_ in its sights, telling an admiral no, regulations be damned. She's as ashamed of misjudging him as she is of herself for being unable to convince her father to stop the attack.

Suddenly she's aware that he's staring at her with those blue, blue eyes.

"I didn't know you then," she says.

"So you trust me now?"

"I still don't know you," she says. "Not really."

"And I have a reputation," he adds, one corner of his mouth turned up.

Carol sits up straighter despite the shoulder harness.

"About that," she says. "I wasn't exactly honest about that either. Remember how I said that Christine Chapel had left for the frontier and I made you think it was because of…you?"

Before Kirk can answer, Dr. McCoy is back at his side, checking the medical readouts.

"As interesting as this conversation is," the doctor says, giving her a meaningful glance, "you need to rest, Jim. I'm going to give you a sedative—"

"No, Bones, don't!" the captain says, looking so much like a reluctant little boy that Carol laughs out loud. "Dr. Marcus and I were just getting started—"

"And now I'm ending it," McCoy says, pressing a hypospray to the captain's neck. Within moments, the captain's eyes roll up in his head and his breathing becomes slow and steady.

Checking the readouts once more, McCoy nods. "Good," he says. "That ought to hold him until we get there."

Carol nods, torn between being relieved that she doesn't have to talk anymore to the captain and disappointed that she can't. There's still so much she needs to say about her own part in what happened to him, to his ship—but she's not sure she's up for true confessions just yet.

The rest of the trip is uneventful, a long, boring time to read all the published data Spock sent her on Andorian weaponry and culture. By the time the shuttle docks—Jim Kirk softly snoring—Carol is antsy to get away before he wakes. When the hatch opens, she's the first passenger in line to exit, her bag slung over her arm.

From his seat Dr. McCoy calls out. "How about that meal?"

Carol turns her head and tries to look suitably regretful.

"I'm not sure what my schedule is going to be," she says. "My host may already have plans."

At the rear of the shuttle the technician is helping Jim Kirk sit up before easing him onto the wheelchair.

_Her fault he's in this condition._ She's never _not_ going to feel responsible.

Heading down the exit ramp, she scans ahead for someone obviously meeting a passenger. Spock has given her little information about who was meeting her here, just that her contact would pick her up at the transport station.

Not all of the people inside the station are Vulcans, though most of them are. Carol walks slowly from the gate to the outer doors, waiting for someone to come up to her or hold up a sign with her name. Nothing. For a moment she has the uneasy sense that she's on a wild goose chase or a fool's errand, that no one knows she's coming.

"Dr. Marcus."

The owner of the deep voice that greets her is an elderly Vulcan man wearing a heavy cowled robe. He's tall and gray-haired, his eyes a rich brown. And surprisingly expressive.

_Human eyes,_ Carol thinks.

"That's me," she says as the Vulcan waves her forward to the outer doors. "I'm Carol Marcus."

The Vulcan's expression shifts again and his eyes crinkle at the corners, almost in amusement.

"Of course you are," he says. "I would recognize you in any universe."

_An odd choice of words._ Carol shivers involuntarily.

And does a double-take. Something about the Vulcan's stance, the tilt of his head, the warmth of his eyes. It's impossible, and yet—

"And you are?" she says, though before he says a word, she shivers again, this time with a certainty that defies any logic.

"I am Spock," he says. "But I can see you already know that."

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Double thanks to everyone who takes the time and care to leave a review. You keep me going, and your comments help me become a better writer.  
**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions. Check out her many terrific stories in my faves.**


	5. Dead End

**Chapter Five: Dead End **

**Disclaimer: No work, just play. **

"Our destination is not far, but we can hire a flitter if you are too tired to walk."

Carol Marcus is, in fact, exhausted. She'd already been awake a solar day when she boarded the shuttle on Earth for the seven-hour trip to New Vulcan, and instead of sleeping, she'd spent the trip reading up on Andorian weaponry. A stupid choice—and now here she is paying the price, almost stumbling over her own feet and struggling to keep her eyes open.

What's that ancient term that describes this feeling? _Shell shock_? That's not it. _Jet lag._ Yes, from when Earth travel consisted mostly of sub-supersonic flights that were both long and arduous.

The elderly Vulcan at her side looks at her with an unmistakable expression of concern. Whoever said Vulcans never showed their emotions was wrong. Commander Spock is equally expressive.

Again the similarities between the two men strike her. The same height, the same posture, the same tilt to the head.

The same raised eyebrow—showing a surprising range of emotions from skepticism to bemusement.

"I'm fine," Carol says, unwilling to complain. "I'm up for a walk, Mr…Spock."

That _is_ how he introduced himself, isn't it? Carol is so tired she doesn't trust herself to have heard him correctly.

"Please," the elderly Vulcan says, motioning her forward to the walkway alongside the road, "call me Selek."

"Oh, I see," Carol says. That explains a great deal. Spock must be the family name. "The Commander is a relative?"

"In a manner of speaking," Selek says.

For a wild moment Carol thinks he looks conspiratorial, as if he is about to divulge a secret. Her brain races ahead.

Is it possible that the Commander is a _clone_?

Clone technology is highly controversial, strictly regulated, and probably widely practiced in secret. By some accounts, the Klingons have had several experiments in cloning and genetic augmentation go horribly awry.

But the Vulcans? She would never have expected it from them.

Carol glances up again at Selek's face. Whatever she thought she saw there earlier is gone. She gives herself a mental shake. Just goes to show how addled she is, how weary.

Stepping off the curb, Selek holds out his hand to warn her to wait for a moment as a large piece of wheeled construction equipment rumbles past. All around are buildings in various stages of completion, most of them low and solid-looking but a few taller structures hinted at with scaffolding. _A city rising up from the proverbial ashes._

They make their way down a thoroughfare that becomes increasingly crowded with foot traffic. An occasional hoverbus passes by, though Carol doesn't see any personal flitters.

Nor does she see anything that looks like an individual dwelling. All the resources seemed devoted to community projects.

The needs of the many?

"As you can see," Selek says, pointing to a cluster of buildings directly ahead, "the government center and the medical facilities are complete. So is the listening post."

He leads the way to a low building without windows that looks for all the world like a reinforced bunker—which, Carol thinks, it probably is. _You can't blame the Vulcans for being incredibly vigilant about new threats. Paranoid, even._

Even with Selek to vouch for her, Carol has to wait while the security guard at the entrance scans her twice.

At last, however, he waves them forward and they make their way to a lift that opens to a room several floors below the surface.

Along one wall is a row of computers with readouts Carol doesn't recognize. A targeting array on one of New Vulcan's moons sends a continuous feed to a dedicated monitor. A sensor loop of nearby space traffic occupies another large section of the room.

"Where is everyone?" Carol asks, startled that the workstations appear to be unmanned.

"At present," Selek says, stepping up to an input panel, "we are understaffed. Most of the Vulcans trained in planetary defense were lost."

Carol's cheeks flush. Of course most of the Vulcans were killed in the genocide.

"I'm sorry!" she stammers. "I didn't mean—"

Suddenly she isn't sure what she is going to say. She doesn't mean to suggest that the Vulcan genocide isn't so large and looming that she's dismissing it. Or not dismissing it, exactly, but not realizing that it informs everything that Vulcans do and say from here on.

An image of the Commander as she last saw him flashes in her memory. Dressed in his gray instructor's uniform, his arm lifted to hand her a PADD with her travel details and so much information about Andoria that she could read every day for weeks and barely scratch the surface, he stood at her apartment door like a sentinel, shaking his head when she invited him in.

"Regardless of the outcome of your efforts," he said as he turned to leave, "it is sufficient that you tried."

At the time she thought he was warning her that tracking down the source of the torpedo would be difficult, that he wasn't hopeful she would succeed, that he appreciated her making the trip to New Vulcan.

Now she wonders if he wasn't saying something grander—about the heroism of fighting the good fight even when you lose, for instance. When promising young cadets die protecting a planet that is destroyed anyway. When a daughter cannot dissuade her father from attacking the _Enterprise_.

Carol's eyes smart and she angles her head away from Selek.

"The archives may reveal something," he says, tapping a series of numbers on the panel. The monitor changes and a string of equations scroll down.

For the next half hour Carol throws herself into examining the data. On the date of the Andorian attack, the listening post on New Vulcan registered several anomalous readings. Most of them can be explained away—a distant quasar, exhaust discharge from a passing freighter, even a feedback squeal when someone adjusted the array.

But one reading continues to frustrate Carol. A signal less than 500 milliseconds in duration—but with the signature of a transporter beam. It's as if a transporter had turned on and off like a light—in the emptiness of space. Impossible.

Rubbing her forehead, Carol feels a dull headache starting. Her eyes are burning; her neck muscles are so tight that she has to consciously lower her shoulders.

"This just doesn't make sense," she says. Moving to her side, Selek looks at the screen and then up at her.

"It does if Mr. Scott is correct."

Reaching past her, he moves his fingers rapidly and another screen pops up.

"Here," he says, touching the screen. "And here. Transwarp beamouts."

"Then it's true," Carol says. If she weren't so tired she'd be horrified. Transwarp beaming could—at least in theory—allow someone to relay a weapon across the galaxy in so many steps that its origin would be hard to prove. Closing her eyes, she sways slightly.

She feels a warm hand on her elbow.

"Forgive me, Dr. Marcus," Selek says. "You are fatigued. Perhaps a rest period is in order."

Carol opens her mouth but her protest dies in her throat. He's right. She's not able to think clearly anymore.

"That would be lovely," she says, picking up her travel bag. "But there's something I need even more."

Selek bends his head toward her and raises one eyebrow—skepticism that someone almost falling-down-tired needs anything more than a bed?

Carol shifts her bag to her shoulder.

"Is it possible to get a cup of tea around here?"

X X X

"Would you prefer another beverage, Dr. Marcus?"

Spock raises his hand to get the attention of the Denobulan owner of the teashop but Carol Marcus shakes her head.

"No, no, this is fine," she says, lifting the cup and taking a sip as if to prove her words true.

The Denobulan—a burly man with intensely blue eyes—comes to the table and lifts the lid of the clay teapot, inspecting the contents. Satisfied that it still contains enough tea, he takes a small PADD from his pocket and stands at attention.

"If I may be so bold," Spock says to Dr. Marcus, "you appear famished as well."

He sees her start to say something—probably to dispute his observation in the mistaken belief that she is being troublesome otherwise.

_That unwillingness to be a burden—a stubborn determination to fend for herself._

A trait Spock remembers about _his_ Carol Marcus—and one that is true in this young woman as well.

"Today's broth," Spock says before she can respond. He looks past her to the Denobulan waiter. "And _gespar_, if you have any. For my guest."

As the waiter leaves, Spock says, "My mother would have taken me to task for not offering a suitable repast when you first arrived. She often had to remind my father and me that humans require more frequent caloric intake than Vulcans. Like you, she found that long travel taxed her physical resources."

"Your mother was human?"

Dr. Marcus's face colors instantly—a physiological response denoting embarrassment, though Spock is uncertain why she should be. After all, he mentioned his mother's humanity first.

"Indeed," he says. "As a child I found our differences problematic, though I came to appreciate them later."

He hopes his tone puts Dr. Marcus at ease. She seems unsettled—and by more than simple fatigue and hunger.

"Your family is certainly interesting," she says, taking another sip of her tea. "I understand that Commander Spock's father is an ambassador."

"Have you met him?"

"His father? No, I don't really know the Commander that well. We were shipmates for only a day—and I caused him too much grief as it was."

Behind him Spock hears footsteps and catches a whiff of broth.

"_Barkaya marak_," Spock says as the Denobulan waiter sets a bowl on the table in front of Dr. Marcus. "One of my mother's favorites."

He watches as Dr. Marcus tentatively dips her spoon into the dark green soup and tastes it.

"Mmm," she says, taking a larger bite. "I see why she liked it."

The smell of the _barkaya marak_ brings his mother so strongly to mind that Spock has an unexpected moment of melancholy. How human to react to a scent this way, buffeted by emotion.

Later he blames the soup for what he says next—or rather, for feeling the need to say anything at all.

"I am curious," he begins, "about your comment that you are responsible for causing Commander Spock grief while you both served on the _Enterprise_. In none of our discussions has he ever mentioned you in any way other than exemplary. Perhaps you are judging your performance unfairly."

Dr. Marcus puts the spoon down so quickly that it clangs in the bowl. Her short blonde hair swings forward like a curtain.

"Don't you see?" she says, her voice shrill in a way that suggests she is close to losing control. "When I found out that the torpedoes were being transferred to the _Enterprise_, I forged my transfer and lied to the Commander about it. Worse, I asked him to cover up the lie when he discovered it. His career could have been damaged."

"Keeping your secret was his choice to make," Spock says evenly. "You cannot blame yourself."

"It's not just that," Dr. Marcus says blinking back visible tears. "Those people on the ship—the captain—they were hurt, _killed_, because of me. If I had stopped my father—"

"Dr. Marcus," Spock says, but she shakes her head. A tear arcs down her cheek and she wipes it away with the back of her hand.

"Please don't tell me that it isn't my responsibility," she says. "I was the only one who could have stopped him and I didn't. I know what I know."

For a moment the only sound is the ambient noise of the teashop—the gentle hiss of a steamer, the clink of silverware, the hum of the overhead air exchanger.

Against his will Spock recalls a conversation with Jim Kirk from a lifetime ago, the captain's anguish when Carol Marcus insisted that he stay out of her life—and out of the life of their son, David.

"You do not have to agree to her terms," Spock had told him, but Kirk didn't seem to hear.

"It's what she wants," he kept saying, though Spock wasn't convinced. His own mother often claimed to want one thing when she privately—or unconsciously—preferred something else.

More than two decades passed before Jim Kirk mentioned Carol Marcus again—this time when she contacted Starfleet in a panic, worried that Jim had ordered the confiscation of the Genesis device.

And now the eddies of the universe have somehow brought them all together again—Khan Noonien Singh at the crux as he was then, though the path hasn't been exactly the same.

Not for the first time, Spock struggles to know how to respond to someone in pain. He tries to imagine what his mother would say.

"Dr. Marcus," he says, waiting for her to look up. She frowns slightly, as if warning him not to try to talk her out of her self-imposed guilt. "Has Commander Spock told you that he was with his mother when she was killed? On the day Vulcan was destroyed, he went to the surface to rescue the elders who had gathered at the katric arc, his parents among them. He was standing beside his mother when she fell to her death before she could be beamed out."

If Dr. Marcus looked upset before, now she looks stricken. Spock hurries on.

"Would you say he failed? Of course. His mother died. But would you hold him responsible for her death? Of course not. The two are not the same. And yet the Commander continues to blame himself."

"I didn't know," Dr. Marcus stammers softly.

"Likewise, you may have failed to stop your father, but you are not responsible for what he did."

"I can't help how I feel," she says.

"Because you are human," Spock says. "Perhaps while you are here you can consult a healer to teach you some meditation techniques. For millennia Vulcans have found meditation a useful way to govern emotions."

To his surprise, Dr. Marcus gives a weak smile.

"Maybe Captain Kirk's healer has room in her schedule," she says.

"The captain is learning Vulcan meditation?"

"That's why he's here," Dr. Marcus says. "We came on the same shuttle. I should have gotten Dr. McCoy to give me whatever he gave the captain to make him sleep the whole way. I wouldn't be so useless right now."

She picks up her spoon to continue eating, saying something about the flavor or texture, but Spock barely hears her. As soon as she finishes he shepherds her out the teashop to a small hostel on a quiet cul-de-sac.

"When you feel sufficiently rested," he says as he takes his leave, "we will continue our examination of the records. There may be a way to adjust the readings to determine transit speed and direction. If so, we should be able to trace the origin of the torpedo after all."

The walk from the hostel to the medical center is only a few minutes, though to Spock it feels longer. He's spoken to Captain Kirk rarely since their mind meld on Delta Vega, an intentional absence on Spock's part. The risk of letting something slip—some knowledge about that other Jim Kirk's life—is too great. For the same reason, he almost never initiates contact with Commander Spock—and was, in fact, startled when the younger man contacted him with questions about Khan.

Perhaps it is the talk of his mother or the smell of her favorite soup, or seeing Carol Marcus wrestle with her grief, or even his own normal loneliness as someone marooned from his familiar world, but Spock has an emotional need to speak to a friend today.

And Jim Kirk is here.

A single receptionist at the front desk of the medical center gives him Kirk's room number and waves him through the security gate. A short lift ride up and suddenly Spock is standing at the end of hallway, hesitating.

In the distance he hears the murmur of human voices—the captain, certainly, though more labored than normal, and the doctor, sounding as petulant as he always has.

"Dammit, Jim," Dr. McCoy says, "if you aren't going to do anything I suggest, why am I even here?"

"When you start making reasonable suggestions," the captain says, "I'll start doing them."

"Getting enough rest isn't unreasonable, Jim. Your body has to heal."

"What's the point of healing my body if I lose my mind! I'm bored, Bones. No one can stay in bed all day. I need to get out and move around. See things. Do things."

The doctor's voice is a deep rumble.

"You can barely walk," he says. "You have to take it slow."

Another murmur as the captain makes some rejoinder, though his voice is too low for Spock to make out the words.

Turning around, he heads back to the lift.

He doesn't need to see the captain and Dr. McCoy to be able to picture the scene—the doctor standing with his hands on his hips, the captain gesturing to the door as he takes the first step of a getaway.

Nor does Spock need to be a part of the scene. His presence would be an awkward imposition, the younger men polite but slightly baffled by his air of familiarity.

With a pang, Spock pushes the lift call button. As much as he wants the company of a friend today, his friends are not here.

It is enough to know that _this_ captain is recovering, that _this_ doctor is watching over his care.

Or it is not enough, but it will have to do.

**A/N: Thanks to everyone for continuing to support this story by reading and reviewing. Your comments help in more ways than you know!  
**


	6. Memorial Garden

**Chapter Six: Memorial Garden**

**Disclaimer: All for love and love for all. (And none for money.)**

Jim Kirk closes his eyes and tries to slow his breathing the way T'Ria showed him. That part of Vulcan meditation is easy. Blanking his mind—letting go of all his conscious thoughts—is almost impossible.

"It is difficult for Vulcans as well," the Vulcan healer told him at their first session that morning as they sat across from each other at a table in a small conference room in the medical center in New Shi'Kahr. Slender, dark-eyed, and sitting ramrod straight, T'Ria motioned to an object on the table as she spoke—a clay pot the size and shape of a jack-o-lantern. "That is why we often use an _asenoi_ to narrow our focus. _Lights off_."

The room dimmed immediately and Jim saw the flickering of a candle inside the _asenoi_.

"Think only of the flame," she said. "Let everything else fall away."

He tried, really.

But the ambient noise in the room proved distracting—the gentle whoosh of an overhead air vent; the distant hum of electricity; T'Ria's almost inaudible rustling as she shifted in her chair.

Even his own breathing kept Jim slightly agitated.

"This isn't working," he said after a few minutes. T'Ria lifted one eyebrow, such an uncanny echo of Spock that Jim had to suppress a laugh. "There's too much going on around me," he explained.

T'Ria folded her hands in front of her on the table. "Or perhaps it is your interior landscape that is too noisy."

He started to offer an automatic denial. _I'm in control. Things don't get to me._ _My recovery is going well. _

Except that it isn't. Physically he's exhausted. A constant buzz runs up and down his arms and legs. He can't remember the last time his head didn't hurt.

Worse, he can't concentrate or rest. The same memories that shake him awake at night bother his waking hours, too—the peculiar painful heat in the _Enterprise's_ reactor room, the way his hands slipped as he climbed the core, the desperation he felt as he kicked the reactor elements into alignment.

And later, the overwhelming weariness as he struggled back to the controls, almost unable to summon enough energy to close the hatch and start the decontamination process. The realization that he was going to die alone, something he had worried about all his life.

Yet not alone after all—Spock suddenly there.

And then—nothing.

"I have an idea," T'Ria said, standing and motioning him to follow her. Jim rose painfully to his feet as she led him out of the building and down a stone walkway toward an area marked off by a line of shrubs. Waving him forward, she said, "A memorial garden, though as you can see, it is not complete. I have only been to Earth once, but I recall seeing similar areas there. It may be that humans require such places for meditation?"

_Similar areas?_

Cemeteries, certainly, were memorial gardens of sorts. And parks could be. Nature preserves, even. Muir Woods, north of San Francisco. He'd spent more than one quiet afternoon wandering through the ancient redwoods, their size and age inevitably reminding him of his own mortality.

This memorial garden was nothing like the parks and woods of Earth—or at least, not like ones he'd seen. In the arid atmosphere of New Vulcan, the native bushes and trees were stubby, thick-leaved desert plants scattered among boulders the same pink and gray as the sand. Several pieces of sculpture were positioned near simple slab benches. A kiosk at the far end was covered with Vulcan script—possibly a list of people killed in the genocide, or an account of the founding of the new colony. Small birds circled overhead on a warm updraft.

Different from the memorials he'd visited on Earth, but imbued with that same sort of calm.

"Yeah," Jim said, turning to T'Ria, "this might be better."

She left him then and he made his way slowly to one of the benches and sat down.

Now he sits as quietly as he can, listening to his own breaths coming in and going out. _In. Out._

_Don't think. Don't think about the Enterprise, battered and docked indefinitely. Don't think about the crew, scattered during this forced hiatus. Don't think about what might happen if you never get your strength back—_

The scrape of shoe on stone and Jim opens his eyes to investigate. Carol Marcus, and with her an elderly Vulcan he would know anywhere.

They do not look in his direction. In fact, they don't seem to know he is there. Feeling like a voyeur, Jim watches as Dr. Marcus says something to Spock and he nods and leaves. She takes several steps into the garden before looking up and seeing Jim.

Even in the flowing Vulcan robe she's wearing, protection against the heat of the colony's sun, Carol Marcus' figure catches Jim's attention and he has a fleeting memory of black underwear...

For a moment she pauses, as if she's contemplating whether to go or stay. Tentatively Jim lifts his hand and calls out.

"Dr. Marcus! Care to join me?"

He's instantly sorry he's phrased it that way. The two times he's seen her since…well, since he _died_…she seemed intensely uncomfortable and unhappy to be in his presence.

Picking her way across the raked sand yard, she looks at her feet and doesn't glance up until she's close enough to the bench to perch on the far end.

_Like someone on the other end of a seesaw, nervous and ready to hop off._

"Captain Kirk," she says, her tone disappointingly clipped and formal. "How is your meditation progressing?"

"Not well!" he says, chuckling. "I'm not getting the hang of it. What about you? How's your visit?"

Carol gives a rueful-looking smile. "About like yours, I'm afraid. Not very successful."

"I saw you with the ambassador," Jim says, cutting his eyes to the front of the garden. "I didn't know you knew each other."

An odd expression flickers over Carol's face and she says, "Ambassador? Selek didn't mention that. All he said was that he and the Commander are relatives."

_She doesn't know._ Only a few people are aware of the elderly Spock's identity—partly out of respect for his privacy but also for protection. Jim can imagine unscrupulous people trying to coerce him into divulging information about the future—even though _this_ universe won't necessarily unfold like the one he came from. Limiting the circle of people who know Spock's—_Selek's_—history is safer.

"The Vulcans I know are pretty private," Jim says, trying to sound agreeable. "So how did you meet…Selek?"

For the next few minutes Carol recounts what she knows about the Andorian attack. When she explains how Commander Spock asked her to investigate, Jim blinks in surprise.

It does make sense, however. Carol Marcus is a weapons expert—specializing in torpedoes. Until her father quarantined his long-range torpedo plans within the secrecy of Section 31's files, she had studied all of Starfleet's R&D information—and the data Starfleet routinely collected from private developers and contractors. Quite possibly, no one else in the world has the breadth of knowledge about torpedoes as Carol Marcus.

Right now, however, her face is pinched in frustration.

"Selek and I found traces of the Andorian torpedo's passage through several different vectors, almost as if it were being transported from spot to spot until it arrived in the atmosphere over the compound."

"Transwarp beaming," Jim says without thinking. Carol jerks her head up.

"You know about that?"

"A little," he concedes. "I know it's been done before."

Carol pulls up as if she's collecting herself and deciding what to say next.

"The listening post here on New Vulcan picked up transporter signatures almost to the edge of the Neutral Zone. It's possible that the Romulans used transwarp technology to send the torpedo to Andoria hoping to start a clan war. You know, one clan blaming another for the attack and escalating the blood feud."

Frowning, Jim says, "And after the clans destroy each other, the Romulans take the entire planet without much resistance."

"Yes!" Carol says, nodding. "That was my first thought."

"Then tell the Andorians that the Romulans are responsible for the attack," Jim says. "The clans will unite to fight a common enemy instead of fighting each other. You'll save their world."

He feels a wave of intense admiration. She's solved the mystery and kept the clans from more internecine warfare. To his astonishment, however, Carol's expression crumples.

"No," she says with a mournful tone, "don't you see? If I go to the Andorians with my suspicions, they might declare war on Romulus. I could be condemning them—and the Romulans—to destruction, and with no real proof that I'm right."

"But if the Romulans are responsible—"

"I don't _know_ that! Where's the hard evidence? Where's the incontrovertible proof? Captain, I _can't_ be the reason more people die. I _can't_ have that on my conscience."

Carol looks so grief-stricken that Jim hesitates for a moment before continuing.

"What does Selek think?"

"He thinks it unlikely that the Romulans are behind the attack," Carol says, "although they are capable of it. He suspects they are too busy with internal politics to care about Andoria right now."

"Are you certain that this wasn't one Andorian clan attacking another?"

"I'm not certain about anything!" Carol says, sounding almost angry. Not with him, Jim realizes, but with herself for not being able to tease out all the information she needs. "Just because the torpedo appears to be from Romulus doesn't mean that some Andorian clan didn't arrange that—maybe to divert the blame. I just don't _know_!"

She's right, of course, but something doesn't _feel_ right. Jim's mind races ahead.

"We know that Andorians are aggressive," he says.

Carol raises an eyebrow warily and Jim goes on.

"Then it doesn't seem likely they would be involved in a sneak attack. They would want the other clan to know they were behind it. Didn't you say that blood feuds were the norm? That families have been embroiled in clan fighting for centuries?"

Nodding, Carol searches his face closely. "Then you're saying that the Romulans _must_ be behind this," she says. Her expression darkens and she takes a visible breath.

"Not necessarily," Jim says. "There's another possibility. What if no one attacked anyone? What if this is a case of friendly fire, so to speak?"

"An accident?"

"Yeah," Jim says. "You said the torpedo was of Andorian design, right? Maybe the clan that was attacked was really the attacker—and the torpedo malfunctioned?"

Her brows knit, Carol shakes her head.

"That seems far-fetched to me," she says. Jim shrugs.

"But not impossible," he says.

"Nothing's impossible," she says, meeting his eyes. "I think Selek's right, that I'm going to have to go to Andoria to look at their records before I know for sure."

"You're leaving?" Jim has an unexpected pang at the thought. Suddenly he feels lonely, or diminished, or bereft. He hardly knows Carol Marcus, yet he's drawn to her. And why not? She's beautiful and brainy, someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly. Someone who doesn't suffer _him_ gladly.

After he'd been promoted to captain Jim found himself the object of attention of many beautiful, smart women—and at first he had been flattered. But invariably he'd wearied of them—of the cloying way they elevated him to some unreal pedestal, interested not in Jim Kirk the man but in Captain Kirk the hero who saved the Earth. He'd grown skittish around women who were eager and fawning. That Carol Marcus doesn't mind challenging him and even taking him to task is...refreshing. And yes, he might as well admit it...arousing.

"As soon as I can arrange transport," she says. "Apparently there's not much traffic between New Vulcan and Andoria. Selek wasn't able to find anything when we checked a little while ago."

"I might be able to help. I'm pretty resourceful."

"Resourceful?"

"And helpful. Loyal, trustworthy, friendly, obedient. Also courteous, kind, reverent and thrifty. Oh, yes, and clean. And cheerful. I think that's the whole list from the Boy Scout handbook."

He gives what he hopes is a winning grin, his hand over his heart. Carol gives her head a little shake and smiles.

"You were a Boy Scout? You?"

"You sound so surprised," Jim says.

"You were _never_ a Boy Scout," she says with a finality that makes him laugh out loud.

The tension between them evaporates. For several moments they sit in companionable silence on the bench, the warm breeze ruffling one edge of Carol's thin robe and blowing her hair back from her face.

With a start, Jim realizes that he is staring at her. As if on cue, she turns and lifts her eyes to his.

"Listen," he says, "would you like to have dinner with me? Tonight? We never got to finish our conversation we started on the shuttle. You still haven't told me why you decided to leave Starfleet."

At once he's sorry he said anything. Carol tenses and pulls back.

"I really should be going," she says, standing up. "It's going to take time to find a transport to Andoria, and I need to get there as soon as possible."

Without knowing exactly what he will say but wanting to stop her from leaving, Jim calls out.

"I might have some contacts who can help you," he says. "I wasn't joking about being resourceful."

She pauses and looks back over her shoulder at him.

"That's right," she says, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Like a Boy Scout."

"Or close," he says, wanting to sound light-hearted even though he's disappointed that she's turning down his offer of dinner. "Even if I wasn't one _exactly_."

When she takes a step back toward him, Jim feels a hitch in his throat.

"I knew you weren't a Boy Scout," she says, her voice soft and low and wistful. "Because you forgot to mention _brave_. And you of all people should remember that."

**A/N: I apologize there's not more action in this chapter...at least not on the surface! Up next, Andoria!**

**Thanks to everyone for reading. A heartfelt hug to everyone who reviews. That's the only pay I need!**

**Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions. She's been busy publishing original Loki stories as ebooks. Check out the first one, "I Bring the Fire," posted on FF, in my faves.**


	7. The First Casualty of War

**Chapter Seven: The First Casualty of War**

**Disclaimer: Just for fun, not profit!**

Carol wakes with a start. For a moment she feels her heart race, unsure where she is. The room is cold and dark and her arms are pinned to her side as if she is bound.

_Not bound, but swaddled._ With a sudden tug, she pulls her arms free of the heavy blankets weighing her down on the hard pallet serving as her bed.

Andoria, in Professor Artura's home.

Arriving late last night, Carol had been shown to this small room by an uncommunicative older Andorian woman who said little more than that the professor was resting and could not be disturbed until morning.

Like most Andorians, she was thin, her skin an almost luminescent turquoise, with two antennae poking out through her fringe of pale hair. She showed Carol the light and heat controls and then left her to figure them out herself. The lights were simple enough but if the room had heat, Carol was unable to make it work. Exhausted from the trip from New Vulcan, she was too tired to seek out the woman—the professor's wife? his housekeeper?—for a more helpful tutorial. Instead, she zipped up her traveling clothes, bundled herself in the available blankets, and curled into a ball on the pallet.

It had been a strange trip already. True to his word, Jim Kirk found transport for her—a Starfleet supply ship servicing the patrols between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The lieutenant at the helm knew Kirk personally from serving with him on the _Enterprise_. Sulu. _Hikaru?_ He'd introduced himself when she'd first come aboard the _Astra_ and sat with her in the galley for a light meal after they'd gotten underway, but the conversation was strained and she was relieved when it was over.

Another reason she's glad she left Starfleet—the awkwardness she feels around Jim Kirk's crew, the unspoken accusations they never say but certainly must feel about her part in what happened to their captain.

She shivers in the bed and pulls the blanket back around her.

A shout and then a moan break the silence. Throwing the blanket off, Carol is on her feet and at the door in a moment.

The older Andorian woman passes her in the hall, barely glancing up, and Carol hesitates. Another moan, and this time Carol can tell that it comes from a distant part of the house. Pulling her door shut behind her, she follows the Andorian woman into the shadows.

Even though she speaks only the basic Andorian most Federation travelers pick up by osmosis, Carol can tell that the unseen speaker is shouting a warning, raising the hair on the back of her neck. Something about the tone of voice is off—and with a sudden leap of intuition, Carol knows why.

The person shouting is asleep.

Sure enough, when she rounds the corner and sees the Andorian woman entering a darkened room, the shouting stops abruptly as the lights go on. The woman murmurs something and Carol sees a figure behind her in the room rising up from a bed.

Professor Artura, his thick blue antennae unfurling slowly, his thin white hair tousled, his eyes bleary and blinking_._

Carol stands in the doorway considering whether to stay or go. As if sensing her deliberation, the Andorian woman turns and motions to her.

"There," she says, pointing to a small metallic bowl on a shelf beside the door. Carol picks it up and sees a thick, yellow fluid the color and consistency of egg yolks inside.

The professor takes the bowl from her with shaky hands, sniffing slowly and then taking a sip. Blinking, he looks up at Carol and nods.

"Dr. Marcus," he says. "I apologize for this poor reception. Nightmares. An unpleasant experience humans and Andorians share, eh? You can speak to that, I suspect."

Carol flashes an uncertain smile and hopes she doesn't look as unsettled as she feels. Some Andorians are highly telepathic—or empathic. She can't remember which, nor is she absolutely certain that it's Andorians she's thinking about and not some other Federation member. Not for the first time, she wishes she had been more attentive in her xenobiology classes.

More than that, right now she wishes she knew what Professor Artura is suggesting—that he somehow knows about the nightmares she's had almost every night for the past two months?

Handing the bowl to the Andorian woman, Professor Artura says, "I see you've met Be'tria. She should have awakened me when you arrived, but she is protective to a fault. I don't know how I'll manage without her when I return to Earth."

Be'tria gives the professor a look that is unmistakably wry.

"You are the clan leader now," she says. "Your place is here."

Professor Artura makes a point of catching Carol's eye.

"Help me up," he says to her, and Carol moves forward and takes his arm, pulling him to his feet. Although he's shorter than she is, he's surprisingly solid and heavy. "Hand me that," he says, and Carol reaches for a cane leaning against the foot of the bed.

Be'tria disappears out the door as Professor Artura moves slowly across the room to where a stone table and chairs are arranged. Carol sits as the professor bustles around a utility cook center set back into a narrow counter.

"Tea?" he says. Lifting the lid from a small wooden box on the counter, he pinches out a thumbful of loose tea leaves and holds them up to his nose. "Andorian _gagv_ is a time-honored way to banish nightmares," he says, waggling one antenna in the direction of the metallic bowl he drank from earlier, "but tea is necessary to banish the taste of _gagv_. You might be surprised, Dr. Marcus, but Andorians are not known for our cuisine."

He gives a conspiratorial grin and Carol returns it, remembering the mildly unpleasant taste of dried snow slugs.

"Earth tea is best," he says, his eyes bright as if savoring some memory. "And this is the best of the best. From Kenya. Commander Spock introduced me to it and it has become a favorite. Do you know the Commander well?"

He slides the last question into his comments so casually that Carol answers before she has time to consider whether she should.

"We were only shipmates for a day," she says, watching the professor tamp the tea leaves into a diffuser before lowering it into an old-fashioned kettle. "And we've only spoken a few times since—"

She lets her sentence drift off, trusting that the professor knows what she means. Even when she talks about her father and the _Vengeance_ she doesn't talk about it—or at least, uses as few words as she can, as if doing so somehow contains and limits the damage, or the memory of it.

The professor nods, his antennae bobbing.

"Did Commander Spock tell you that we worked together at the Academy? In the language department? After he left I inherited his teaching aide. Is that the right word? _Inherited?_ Standard is such a tricky language, with so many traps to catch the unwary."

He doesn't wait for an answer but busies himself with pouring tea. Carol takes a tentative sip from the cup he hands her and nods approval.

"From Cadet Uhura's home," he says, lifting his cup like someone about to make a human toast. "She seemed exceptionally fond of this particular tea. I believe that's why the Commander kept the break room stocked with it."

He chuckles softly like someone sharing a private joke.

_Is he? _

"Lieutenant Uhura was the Commander's teaching aide before she was yours?"

"You know her?"

Carol has a palpable memory of Uhura standing at her door, an emissary from Commander Spock, making the case for him that Carol's help was critical. And later with Spock at the Vulcan ambassador's home, comfortable in a way that Carol had wondered about briefly and then set aside.

The tumblers in her mind start to shift.

"We've met," she says simply. Professor Artura sets his cup back on the counter and says, "I worry about her, the way I would if she were my own daughter."

He sits at the table and his head bends forward, his eyes hidden, his antennae a drooping echo of his mood.

Carol tries not to squirm. _Should she leave?_

"I'm being a bad host," the professor says, lifting his head, and Carol once again wonders if he is telepathically aware of her thoughts. She shivers, not just from the cold.

"Perhaps you should rest," Carol says. "We can talk later."

"Oh, no," Professor Artura says. "Sleeping or waking, it doesn't matter. Either one is a nightmare."

Under normal circumstances Carol is polite to a fault, reserved to the point of being misunderstood as chilly, reluctant to intrude into anyone's private business.

But this isn't normal circumstances. She's tired and cold and frustrated that she hasn't been able to track the torpedo to its source. And something about the professor—the hint that he's on to her, that he sees beneath what she projects—makes her next words tumble out in such a rush that she surprises herself.

"I know what you mean," she hears herself say. "I hardly think about anything else except my father these days. And I dream about him every night."

"You miss him," Professor Artura says, "but it is your guilt that won't leave you alone."

Carol blinks back sudden tears.

"Commander Spock must have told you," she says, but Professor Artura shakes his head.

"Losing a loved one always includes guilt," he says. "Guilt that we couldn't stop their deaths, perhaps, or guilt for what we failed to say to them when we had the chance."

He tilts his head as if deciding whether to continue.

"No matter what you think you should have done," he says, "your guilt cannot compare to mine. When my wife's uncle killed a member of a rival clan, she and my daughter were lawful targets of retribution. One morning—"

His voice breaks and he swallows. "One morning, we were gathering for a meal when their murderers broke into our home. They beat and carried off Taria and…Lulli…and left me behind, spared by the rules of blood ties. They murdered my family, as was their right."

He takes a deep breath. "My guilt," he says, "almost drives me to murder. Every day. Even now, seven years later, I wake up so enraged that my first thought is killing their killers. I know who they are. I know who their kin are. It is within my right to end their lives."

Carol can hardly breathe. The Professor's face turns a mottled dark blue, his fisted hands resting on the table.

"But you haven't," Carol says at last, and the professor lowers his eyes and shakes his head slowly. "No," he says, "I haven't. And every day that I do not raise my hand against my enemy, my guilt for not doing so wars with the guilt of letting my family die."

The professor sits up and looks her in the eye. "I live with this war of guilt," he says simply, "so that others do not have to suffer. If I kill the killers, more people will die. People like my Lulli…young, beautiful. Graceful. She was so light on her feet that she hardly made a sound when she walked, though I could always tell her footsteps from any others."

The tears that have brimmed in Carol's eyes spill down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm so sorry."

Professor Artura unfists his left hand and reaches across the table, slipping his fingers over Carol's wrist and giving her a little pat.

"Come on," he says abruptly, standing up. "Let me show you what I have, and you can tell me what you think it means."

x x x

Carol rubs her eyes and sneaks a look at the chronometer on her comm. Four hours—_more_ than four hours—have passed since she and Professor Artura parked themselves in his workroom, scouring the recorded data feeds from the compound security sensors. After uploading all the files she brought from New Vulcan, Carol began the laborious task of weeding out duplications and tracking down discrepancies, dictating her findings aloud for Professor Artura's benefit.

Nothing jumped out as definitive.

She rubs her eyes again and lifts her arms over her head, stretching. Her motion catches the attention of the Andorian and he waggles his antennae in her direction.

"Here's what we know," Carol says, holding up a finger as she ticks off each item. "First, the torpedo that killed your clan leader was made on Andoria. The metal debris is from an ore mined here. The exhaust scoring indicates a fuel used only in this sector. If this is a fake, it's a good one."

The professor nods in agreement.

"We also know that right before the torpedo detonated, the Vulcan listening post picked up a series of signals that appear to be transwarp beaming signatures from here to the Neutral Zone. That suggests the torpedo may have been beamed here from a great distance—most likely from the Romulan controlled area."

Again Professor Artura nods.

"However," Carol continues, "if the Romulans are responsible for the attack, their motives are unclear. There are no signs of Romulan ships massing at the border or preparing an invasion. If they were hoping that the Andorians would be seriously weakened defensively by a clan war, their strategy was off."

"So the Romulans are not the source," Professor Artura says. Carol shakes her head.

"We can't rule them out completely. Someone set up those transwarp beam points. I'm betting that another Andorian clan did that, one that wanted to hide their identity. They could send a torpedo from here and hide its trajectory by having it skip from station to station until it came back—"

"No!" Professor Artura says vehemently. "They wouldn't. It goes against everything Andorians believe. When you strike your enemy, he must know whose fist it is. They wouldn't defy tradition this way."

Suddenly Carol is so tired that she can hardly hold her head up. Leaning forward, she puts her chin on her hand.

"You did," she says. "Defied tradition. You didn't retaliate when you could. You stopped another blood feud from starting."

Professor Artura seems to crumple within himself. His shoulders sag and he runs one hand through his wispy white bangs.

"Going against tradition carries a price," he says. "My decision is part of the reason I left Andoria."

"Yet you returned when you were called to lead the T'hulia clan," Carol points out. "It's not that you don't value your people's traditions. It's just that you honor the memory of your family more. You don't want anyone else to die the way they did—"

"No," Professor Artura says. "I don't. But if someone _is_ willing to kill anonymously, that is worse than defying tradition. Now instead of knowing where to retaliate, every clan will be suspect. Instead of limiting war, this makes everyone a target."

The implications are staggering, Carol realizes. People as committed to "an eye for an eye" as the Andorians won't stop until they believe their wrongs have been addressed—even if that means worldwide war.

Getting to his feet, the professor sways slightly. "My clan subordinates are impatient for a reply," he says. "If I tell them that the Romulans are to blame, they will appeal to the planetary council to launch a mass attack against our common enemy."

Carol feels her stomach give a lurch.

"Andoria would be united," the professor continues, "but we could be destroyed by the Romulans."

In the bright light of the workroom the professor's eyes shine with an unnatural glimmer. His antennae are ramrod straight, for once motionless.

"On the other hand," he says, "if I report that we do not know which clan attacked us, the T'hulia will take that as permission to attack every other clan on the planet. We will destroy each other."

For a moment the room is silent. Then Professor Artura taps his cane on the ground and pushes his shoulders back.

"There is a terrible alternative," he says, "though it may be the only real choice I have."

Carol looks up, waiting, as the professor's expression darkens.

"If I give the name of another clan and say they are the attacker," he says, "I could contain the violence. At least most of it."

Before she can stop herself, Carol blurts out, "But innocent people will die!"

"The Vulcans have a saying," Professor Artura says. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. In this case, the many are the Andorian people. If one clan must be sacrificed to insure our survival as a people—"

"Wait!"

Professor Artura pulls back and watches her closely. Carol's brain is racing, trying to find some way around the terrible truth the professor has laid out.

"There has to be another way!" she says frantically. "There are always possibilities!"

"Yes," Professor Artura says, "but what?"

"Andorian tradition demands that you have to strike back at whoever strikes you first, right?"

"As I've said."

"Then turn the situation around," Carol says. "Tell your clan that they weren't attacked at all."

For the first time since she's met him, Carol sees the Professor look annoyed. And not just annoyed, but exasperated—with her.

"Dr. Marcus," he says, his voice clipped, "haven't you listened to anything I've said? The death of the T'hulian clan leader must be avenged. Not because I want it, but because my clan demands it. If I misled you by telling you about my own deviant behavior—"

"No!" Carol says. "I'm saying there's another way! An idea Captain Kirk gave me, actually, when I spoke to him on New Vulcan. What if the T'hulians themselves were responsible? What if the torpedo was launched from this compound? If it was an experiment gone bad? Maybe a test of transwarp beaming itself? Maybe," she pauses for effect and then adds, "maybe a test of an anonymous air strike? A disastrous test—that could backfire on whoever tries it?"

"A lesson," Professor Artura says, picking up immediately on what Carol is suggesting. "A warning and a lesson."

"Exactly," Carol says. "The torpedo mishap was nothing more than friendly fire. Your clan leader was killed accidentally by his own people. There's no one to retaliate against."

"A lie," Professor Artura says. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"We don't know that," Carol says. "It _could_ be what happened."

"But I do not _know_ if it is the truth," the professor says.

"Once you say it is, it will be."

Professor Artura's antennae curl forward.

"You're sure you can't determine the actual source?" he asks, and Carol shrugs.

"If I had more time and more equipment, maybe. But do you want me to? This might not be the most elegant solution, but it might be the best one. If Andorians are behind the attack, they will see that they gained nothing."

She can tell the wheels of the professor's brain are turning.

"If a rival clan _is_ responsible, they will know I am lying. They will attack again."

"Maybe we can buy some time," Carol says. "Get out the word that you've hired a former Starfleet torpedo expert with a secret device that neutralizes all weapons and returns them to their source rearmed and detonated. Anyone who tries to attack you will find himself facing the business end of his own torpedo. Say you had to do that because your own experiment in stealth attacks went awry and you lost your clan leader that way."

"You will need to stay here on Andoria long enough to make the story believable," Professor Artura says.

"Or to work with you to improve your defenses," she says. "I don't have any secret device but we might be able to make the compound more secure. Either that, or you can tell everyone what you told me—that revenge has to stop somewhere."

"End the tradition of blood feuds? Be the change I want to see?" Professor Artura says, shaking his head. "Join the Aenar, perhaps? The blind empaths who alone among my people have given up war? We aren't ready to do so just yet, Dr. Marcus."

He grasps his cane and takes a step forward.

"Come on," he says, reaching to help her to her feet. "I have to convene my clan subordinates and tell them what you have found. What did you call it? That phrase?"

"Friendly fire?"

Nodding, Professor Artura says, "A pretty name for such an ugly thing."

**A/N: Professor Artura appears in several of my Academy stories. Chapter Six of "People Will Say" reveals more details about his back story and explains his relationship with Spock and Uhura. **

**We're not done yet! Please stay aboard for a little longer! Thanks for reading, and thanks even more for leaving a review!**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for all her help! Check out her many stories in my faves.**


	8. Revelations

**Chapter Eight: Revelations**

**Disclaimer: I make no money but write this for love.**

"May I come in?"

The tall, young Andorian male standing in Carol's doorway shifts his gaze uneasily down the hallway, his antennae pointed backward like the flattened ears of a spooked cat.

In the month that she's been on Andoria, Carol has come to recognize most of the clan's staff members and has even struck up nodding acquaintances with several, including Shevas, the man asking to speak with her now.

She nods and steps back. Shevas follows her in and makes a point of closing her door behind him.

"Tea?" Carol says, motioning to the pot on the table. Shevas shakes his head and continues to stand. For a moment Carol pauses, watching him closely. He's clearly agitated, his antennae still bent low over his head. Hoping to put him at ease, Carol pulls out one of the chairs around the table and sits.

"What can I help you with?" she asks. Shevas shifts from one foot to the other before finally sitting down.

"The Starfleet officer. The one here for the resistor tutorial. How long is he staying on Andoria?"

Carol purses her lips and frowns.

"Ensign Chekov? I have no idea. I suppose when he's learned everything he can about resistors. You'll have to ask him."

"Is it typical for your military personnel to study this way? By seeking out experts for tutorials?"

Reaching for the handle of the teapot, Carol tries to stall for time. _What exactly is Shevas asking? Or implying? And why is he so nervous?_

She lifts the pot and pours herself a cup of tea. Raising one eyebrow, she indicates the cup but Shevas shakes his head again, his antennae moving up slowly.

"Not typical," she says, "but then Ensign Chekov is on hiatus." She adds, "While the _Enterprise_ is being refit. He's a member of the crew."

Shevas bobs his head and stands up.

"Was there anything else?" Carol asks.

"And you, Dr. Marcus? How long will you remain?"

Carol sighs. That's a good question, and one she doesn't know how to answer. She's already been on Andoria longer than she planned, but she doesn't want to leave until she's sure the T'hulian compound is secure. That means testing all the existing surveillance systems and looking for holes in the defense.

And more than that, Carol realizes that she's serving an important role as a sounding board for Professor Artura as he sorts out how to prepare for his own departure—including naming a successor.

Just yesterday Carol had joked that the first thing she was going to do when she got back to Earth was sit on a sunny beach somewhere with her toes in the sand.

Professor Artura waved his antennae in the Andorian equivalent of a Bronx cheer.

"What?" Carol laughed. "You don't like warm weather?"

"San Francisco is as warm as I care to be," the professor said.

Carol snorted. "Which is a _no_."

"Even though it is too warm," Professor Artura said, "Earth is home now."

He and Carol spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the service records for Shevas and Tran, the professor's top contenders to take over the clan leadership after he returns to his duties at the Academy. Both are competent and experienced, having worked their way up to lieutenants for the former clan leader. Both are ambitious but not so competitive that they put their personal interests before the clan's.

Or at least that's Carol's impression. She knows Shevas better than she knows Tran, has spoken to him often in casual conversations and is impressed with his quickness, with his serious demeanor.

After he leaves her room she wonders if she might have misread him after all, if the real purpose of his visit was to influence the professor's decision somehow—perhaps hoping she would put in a good word for him.

Yet why the questions about Chekov?

She wasn't trying to be disingenuous when she told Shevas that she didn't know Chekov's plans. She had been surprised when Chekov showed up two days ago saying that he was spending his hiatus studying various engineering systems. He'd already done a two-week course on warp technology on one of the outer ring planets. After Andoria he was headed to a conference on Mars.

"That's commendable," Carol told him, but he shrugged.

"Necessary," he said, looking away as if embarrassed. "I should have been better prepared."

He had already grabbed his duffel bag and headed across the compound to the visitors' hut before Carol understood what he meant: He blamed himself for what happened to the _Enterprise_ and to the captain. She raised her hand to call him back and reassure him but the words died in her throat.

More than anyone else, she knew that nothing she could say would change his mind.

Now Shevas' visit makes her think again about what Chekov is doing here.

And what he _could_ be doing.

She finds him hunched over a console in one of the smaller tech labs. Looking up, he acknowledges her with a little smile.

"Dr. Marcus," he says as she pulls up a stool and sits beside him. Glancing down, she sees that he has several monitor screens open but that none appear to be running time sensitive calculations.

_Good. She can interrupt him._

"How much do you know about transwarp beaming?" she says without preamble. To his credit, Chekov doesn't blink or look startled.

"Starfleet has classified that information," he says slowly.

"Starfleet has classified lots of information," Carol says. "Like how they used Khan to develop new weapons, for instance."

Chekov opens his mouth as if to say something but then seems to think better of it. He closes his mouth again.

"If that information had been more transparent—" Carol lets her words trail off.

If that information had been more transparent, the Federation would have stopped her father and the other officers who wanted to militarize Starfleet. The attack ship and the long-range torpedoes wouldn't have been built. The Klingons wouldn't have been provoked. The _Enterprise_ wouldn't be in pieces.

And her father would still be alive.

Carol leans close enough to Chekov to see a prickle of sweat on his brow.

"Mr. Chekov," she says, "someone using transwarp beaming almost brought this planet to the brink of war. I don't know who. I don't know how. But I do know that they will try again, and next time they might succeed."

Chekov swallows visibly.

"What can I do?"

Carol sits back.

"I just want you to look over the records," she says. "See if I've missed anything. I don't want to leave Andoria until I know I can't do anything else to help them."

She reaches past his arm to the toggle switch at the bottom of the console.

"May I?"

Without waiting for an answer, she halts his programs and calls up the sensor data from the attack on the T'hulian compound. She's looked at it so long that she no longer _sees_ it—not in a way that is helpful. Another pair of eyes—another brain—can't hurt.

As Chekov flips through the data Carol fills him in on the details—how the torpedo can't be traced to a particular origin, how Professor Artura has declared the leader's death the result of friendly fire.

"Sooner or later," Carol says, "someone will figure out that it's a lie, and then we're back where we started, with the Andorians either heading to war against the Romulans or aiming their weapons at each other."

"Maybe not," Chekov says. He taps his finger on a graph. "See those? The transwarp signatures?"

Tamping down a wave of impatience, Carol says, "I know that. I've been over these charts a hundred times."

"Then you noticed how they leapfrog."

"What?"

"Leapfrog. Jump over each other."

"I don't—"

"See," Chekov says, enhancing the graph with the swipe of his thumb. "There are seven transwarp records. Seven instances where the sensors picked up beam activity."

"I know," Carol says. "Someone planted seven transwarp pads from the Neutral Zone to Andoria and sent the torpedo on its merry way."

Chekov flicks to another screen.

"I don't think so. There are only two transwarp signatures. Each one has a distinctive electron mass differential which gives them separate spin velocities."

"I'm not following you," Carol says. "I thought there were seven transwarp pads—"

"Not _pads_," Chekov says, sitting back. "Seven instances of beaming but only two pads. Call them A and B. This first one is A…and right after it is B. And then A again. And B. Leapfrog."

Of course! Why hadn't she seen it before? The idea behind transwarp is to extend the range of a transporter and make it more mobile. Khan had carried one aboard the jump ship he stole after the bombing in London. Two personal flitters, each equipped with a transwarp pad, must have worked in relay, one beaming the torpedo to the second flitter and then racing ahead to receive that same torpedo when it was beamed again, effectively hiding the origins and muddying the transit path—leapfrogging until getting close enough to the final destination to send the torpedo on its way.

"But that doesn't help us figure out where it started—"

"It does!" Chekov says. "The most recent electron timestamp is the one that sent the torpedo into the compound. If you trace the timestamps of each of the seven beam signatures, you can see where the torpedo started."

He types in some numbers and a new screen pops up, this one showing the torpedo's trajectory. Carol gasps.

"But, but—" she stammers. "According to this, the torpedo started here. On Andoria. In this compound. And then it was leapfrogged out toward the Neutral Zone before circling back here. Are you saying that this _is_ an instance of friendly fire?"

"What I'm saying," Chekov says, turning and looking squarely at Carol, "is that someone here knows what really happened."

X X X

"Thank you for coming in so late," Professor Artura says as Shevas looks around the meeting room. Carol and Chekov are sitting on a hard backless bench next to an oblong table. Tran, the other clan lieutenant, is seated across from them, Professor Artura at the end of the table.

For a moment Carol thinks Shevas is going to turn around and exit. His antennae stick straight up in alarm.

He almost stumbles as he takes a step forward at last and sits down.

"You're probably wondering why I've asked you here," Professor Artura says. Carol sees Shevas and Tran exchange glances. By now Carol knows that except for their distant cousins the Aenar, Andorians are not telepathic. Still, Shevas and Tran are clearly communicating something to each other.

Then with a wave of his antennae, Tran says, "It was not my idea. I was forced to participate."

He swivels his head in Shevas' direction. Professor Artura says, "What was not your idea? Explain."

The story is almost exactly the one Chekov had described to Carol. On the day of the attack, Shevas and Tran were flying personal flitters equipped with transwarp pads, taking turns beaming and receiving the torpedo.

"You were playing leapfrog," Chekov says, interrupting Tran's recitation. Both Shevas and Tran look confused, but Professor Artura nods slowly.

"This doesn't answer the bigger question of why," he says. Shevas squares his shoulders and picks up the story.

"Our clan leader heard about transwarp from Knormian traders. He bartered a shipment of phase pistols for two prototypes. With just two pads, we could beam a torpedo anywhere—at least potentially."

"All the way to Romulus," Carol says, and Shevas waves his antennae counterclockwise, an Andorian shrug.

"Why go to all that trouble if we wanted to attack Romulus? We would have flown to the edge if the Neutral Zone and launched our weapons there. The only real reason to do multiple beam outs is to hide the origin."

"So your target _was_ here on Andoria," Carol says. "Another clan."

"Yes," Shevas says. "At least, that was the intention of our clan leader. I…disagreed…with him in this matter. I felt that such an attack was…dishonorable."

Glancing up at Tran, Shevas blinks rapidly as if waiting for him to say something. Tran looks away.

"But you piloted one of the flitters," Chekov says, and Shevas says, "Not because I wanted to but because I had to obey our clan leader's orders. He believed that with this new technology, we would be able to attack other clans without the danger of retaliation."

Twisting his hands, he says, "I hoped that the blood feuds would cease because the attacker could not be traced."

"But don't you see," Carol says, leaning forward, "that a stealth attack in a society that demands retribution opens up everyone for indiscriminate warfare."

Flinching, Shevas nods.

"I came to this conclusion eventually."

With an audible sigh, Professor Artura says, "This does not explain why the torpedo detonated here, why the clan leader was killed. Surely he did not intend his own death."

Again Shevas and Tran exchange uneasy glances.

"This was not supposed to be an actual attack," Shevas says. "We were testing the transwarp pads, sending the torpedo to the edge of Andorian space before returning home. Something went wrong."

"The prototype pads did not function as we were led to believe they would," Tran says with more emotion than Carol has heard from him before. "After repeated beamings, the integrity of the torpedo was compromised."

"As we returned home," Shevas added, "we realized the torpedo had armed itself. If it detonated in Andoria's atmosphere, the other clans would investigate and discover what we had been doing."

"So you sent it to your own compound," Carol says. "You killed your own clan leader."

Shevas nods slowly and lowers his eyes.

"I am responsible," he says. "I made the choice to send the torpedo here."

From the corner of her eye Carol sees Professor Artura react. He grips the head of his walking stick so tightly that the veins on his hand stand up like rivers on a relief map.

"You could have sent it anywhere," the professor says. "To any clan. Yet you chose to endanger your own people."

"No!" Shevas cries out. "Our compound was empty that day. To maintain secrecy about our experiment, everyone had been evacuated earlier."

"When I knew he was going to jettison the torpedo, I urged him to send it to the S'andlian clan," Tran says in a rush. "Recently they have been suspected of poaching _kreia_ from our western borderlands. They deserve some punishment."

"But we have no proof," Shevas says, his brow wrinkled, his antennae waving wildly. "Innocents would have died. I knew there was a risk to our clan leader when I sent the torpedo here, but it was the only choice that would not bring more bloodshed to our family."

From where she sits Carol can tell that Shevas' admission is costing him. His skin is slick with oily sweat. His eyes roll from side to side and he seems to be pulling inward, as if expecting a blow.

"I did not want to start a new blood feud," he says, his voice hoarse with emotion. "And so I did the worst thing a lieutenant can do. I betrayed my leader."

Despite herself, Carol feels her face flush with annoyance.

"Why didn't you come forward with the truth before now? You could have saved us all a lot of trouble."

Tran crosses his arms in an unmistakable show of solidarity with her. Shevas slumps down further in his chair.

"Tran and I discussed this," he says. "Professor Artura is a man of—"

Hesitating, he cuts his eyes around the room before continuing.

"A man of peace. It's true. When his wife and daughter were killed, he did not pursue his right to a blood feud. I knew he would not approve of what our former clan leader was attempting."

"So you hid it from him," Chekov adds. Shevas takes a breath and says, "The news that our compound had been attacked put the other clans on high alert. We hoped the uncertainty would stay the hands of anyone tempted to launch an assault against us. Then when you arrived—"

Pointing his antennae in Carol's direction, Shevas gives a little bob of his head.

"—the professor declared the incident to be _friendly fire_. It was the perfect solution. Tactically brilliant. After that, the truth became unnecessary. Our family was safe."

"For awhile," Carol says pointedly. Shevas sits up and says, "Safety is never assured forever. But for now, yes. There will be no new blood feud, and that is what matters most. That is why I kept silent. And why I encouraged Tran to keep our secret."

Professor Artura looks at Shevas for a moment before turning to Tran.

"So Shevas is responsible for everything? For sending the torpedo here? For keeping this failed experiment a secret? These were not your decisions?"

"They were not," Tran says quickly.

"Thank you," Professor Artura says. "You've made my own decision much easier."

Standing slowly, he reaches out to Carol and she scrambles to her feet, holding out her arm for the professor to steady himself with.

"Dr. Marcus," he says, "you are, of course, welcome to stay here on Andoria as long as you wish, but I will be returning to Earth as soon as I can arrange transport."

He leans into her and she shifts her weight to keep from rocking backward.

"You're finished here?" she asks, and she feels him nodding.

"Indeed," he says. "I've done all I can to make the compound more secure. With your help, of course. But now it's time to pass the reins to younger hands."

He takes a step toward the door and pauses long enough to motion back to the table where Shevas and Tran are still seated.

"If you have any further business with the new clan leader," Professor Artura says, "you will have to deal with Shevas."

"Shevas!" Tran's voice echoes across the room. Jealous? Or merely surprised? Carol can't tell.

"Shevas," Professor Artura says. "It takes courage to make a decision when none of the choices are good ones."

He nods at Shevas like someone bestowing a benediction.

"Fortunately for me," Professor Artura says, "I do not have that dilemma. I have a good choice here. Shevas will lead this clan well."

**A/N: Please forgive this tardy update. RL has been quite challenging lately. The last two chapters of this story are outlined and ready to be written out…so hopefully the next update will be much, much sooner! **

**Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story and continues to read and review. You have buoyed me during a difficult time.**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions. She always gives good advice. Check out her many terrific stories in my faves.**


	9. Return Voyage

**Chapter Nine: Return Voyage**

**Disclaimer: No money made here. All for love.**

Carol Marcus steps over the open bulkhead and makes her way down the ship's corridor. Like most light cruisers, the _Astra_ is more often than not pressed into service as a supply ship now that New Vulcan is being colonized. So many battle cruisers were lost at the Battle of Vulcan that the remaining light craft do double duty as patrols and transport vehicles.

That isn't to say that the ships are dreary and sterile or that the crews are too busy to personalize their quarters and make their ships—no matter how temporary or rushed the assignment—feel like home. The _Astra_ is no exception. On her first night aboard, Carol finds the small botanical garden—or something approximating one—in a corner of the cramped observation lounge. Vines are draped up the wall, a bright orange, feathered tree overhangs several small prickly bushes, and a furry yellow and green lichen covers part of the deck plating. Hikaru Sulu, the _Enterprise's_ helmsman who ferried Carol from New Vulcan to Andoria and who is now taking her back, waves miniature pruning shears in Carol's direction when she comes in.

"Dr. Marcus!" he calls. "Thank you for the tuber roots. I'm glad to add some native Andorian flora."

"I remember that you said you enjoyed xenobotany," Carol says, joining him near the plants. "I'm taking some home to try to propagate them. They were the most palatable thing on that whole ball of ice—those and the dried snow slugs. In fact, I'm seriously considering opening a restaurant on Earth serving nothing but Andorian cuisine."

Sulu gives her an odd look before breaking out in a big smile, and with a start, Carol realizes that it's been quite a while since she's made a joke. It feels good.

"This looks beautiful," she says, waving her hand at the trees and vines in the corner. Sulu purses his lips and shakes his head.

"This? This is just to keep them growing while the _Enterprise_ is in Space Dock. I can't wait to transfer them to the real arboretum on the ship. The captain is letting me work with the botanist on the design."

His face is lit from within, his excitement palpable.

"So," Carol says, testing the waters, "the _Enterprise_ repairs are moving along? And the captain?"

"He says he's training for a half-marathon next week," Sulu says. "You'd never know there was anything ever wrong with him."

If he blames Carol for the captain's health detour, his face gives nothing away. Instead, Sulu seems to have forgotten that Carol is basically a stranger to the crew. His manner is warm and familiar, a contrast to how reserved and distant Carol had felt on the outward journey.

"He's still on New Vulcan?" she asks, cutting her eyes at Sulu as she does.

"Who? Captain Kirk? No, returned to Earth a few days ago. You just missed him."

Carol feels an unaccountable and unexpected pang of sadness at the news. Belatedly she realizes that she was looking forward to spending some time with Jim Kirk again on New Vulcan. In fact, she told Selek that if she could arrange it, she would prefer to stay on the colony for several days before leaving again for Earth. Now that plan seems foolish and self-indulgent. Apparently the captain's recovery is quicker than anyone anticipated.

"But if you need to get in touch with him," Sulu says, pulling out his personal comm, "I have his contact information."

He flips open his comm and holds it up for Carol to see.

"Oh, no, well, I—" she stammers. She has no real excuse to get in touch with the captain. Still, it might not be a bad idea to have some way to reach him. Just in case something comes up in the future.

She realizes she is lying to herself, or rationalizing her desire to see him again. The last time she and the captain talked together, she had the unmistakable feeling that there was something _there_ between them, something other than the gnawing guilt she's been dragging along for so long. So what if she wants to explore what that is? There's no harm in it, right?

For a second she struggles to know what to say to Sulu. At last she simply takes his comm in her hand and says, "Thank you," as she copies the contact information.

She watches as Sulu trims a few of the orange feathery leaves on the tree. His shoulders are squared and his knees bent like someone in a formal pose, and suddenly Carol thinks she knows why.

"Do you train in the martial arts, lieutenant?" she asks. To her surprise, Sulu laughs.

"Never was interested," he says, swinging the pruning shears up to rest on his shoulder. "Much to my uncle's disappointment. He's a grand master in taekwando. Not my cup of tea, so to speak. I much prefer fencing."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, Doctor. Why are you so surprised?"

"It's just that I enjoy it, too. Have since primary school, in fact. If this trip weren't so short, I'd offer to be your sparring partner."

Now it's Sulu's turn to look wide-eyed with surprise.

"When I finish this run I'll be home for two weeks before heading back out. We could meet at the Academy gym. Just say the word," he says.

Before she realizes what she's doing, Carol has a mental image of herself with her foil in her hand, her breeches snugged tight with suspenders, her jacket kept in place with the _croissard, _her new mask with the transparent aluminum visor firmly on her head. The old thrill of thrust and parry—she can almost taste the nervous energy before a hard workout.

"I'd like that," she says. It's true. She would like to spar with Sulu, would like to feel the heft of a foil or an epee or her favorite saber once again in her hand.

But agreeing to it somehow ties her to him in a way that feels strangely permanent, as if she can't then move away or back out. As if she is agreeing to spar with him all through the hiatus, and even afterward, when the _Enterprise_ leaves for her next voyage.

"I'd like that," Carol says again, and this time she knows she is saying something more than just commenting about fencing. She's considering Starfleet again—something she hadn't thought she would do.

The trip to Andoria has made her rethink her usefulness...and reminded her that as singular as she feels, it is as a team member that she is most alive. How many people has it already taken to sort through the truth of the Andorian attack? Scotty and Sulu and Chekov and even the captain, with his suggestion of friendly fire? And Spock and Lt. Uhura, of course, who set all this in motion to start with.

Of course there's no guarantee that she'd be a member of the _Enterprise_ crew again. In fact, her earlier deception may have made such an assignment harder to wrangle.

But there are other ships, other ways to serve. She may have been too hasty when she resigned.

She takes in a deep breath and lets out it. _First things first_, she tells herself. _You can't rejoin Starfleet based on an upsurge of emotion. Take time to think this through._

"Deal," she hears herself tell Sulu, not quite sure what all she is agreeing to.

X X X

Spock turns up the heat on the wall controls and crosses the room to hand Carol Marcus a soft woven blanket, one of several he keeps handy here in his sitting room on New Vulcan. She's sitting with her arms wrapped around her bent knees on the sofa, the tips of her fingers barely visible out the ends of the sleeves of a Vulcan robe far too big for her. With a smile that Spock assumes is one of gratitude, she pulls the blanket over her shoulders.

"The desert air," he says by way of explanation. "It makes for chilly evenings here, though I don't recall being quite so uncomfortable at my parents' house in Shi'Kahr. One of the problems of old age—the inability to tolerate the cold."

Spock sees Dr. Marcus open her mouth to say something. The odds are high that she is preparing some human platitude, some reassurance that he is not old, as if old age were something to be avoided or ashamed of.

To some, perhaps it is. Or was. An image of Jim Kirk on his 59th birthday—more annoyed than cheered by the notice taken by his friends.

"I have never understood," Spock told him over a hasty lunch before Kirk, now an Admiral, had hurried to headquarters for a meeting with Admiral Soto, "why the celebration of your birth disturbs you. Surely it is a time of celebration."

"It's not birthdays I object to," Kirk said, lips pursed, "but growing old. And don't—" he said as Spock was about to make a rejoinder—"tell me that you can't have one without the other. You know what I mean. I have too many things I want to do before I die. Before I grow too old to do them."

"You are not old," Spock quipped. "Not even for a human."

Kirk had given him a sour look instead of bothering with an answer.

"Indeed," Spock continued, "I calculate the odds at 98.48% that for the foreseeable future you will experience reasonable good health and will pursue many activities in which you find purpose and meaning."

Kirk put down his fork and swallowed his salad before answering.

"_Reasonable_ good health?"

"For a human."

Kirk picked his fork back up and eyed his salad with undisguised distaste.

"And all I have to do is eat rabbit food until then. Not a happy picture, Spock."

"Need I remind you that I am eating the same _rabbit food_."

"And will live to be 300, no doubt."

It was the kind of thing Jim Kirk could say without forethought—something that skirted the edge of wit but drifted into painful truth before he knew what he was doing. He was neither resentful nor jealous of Spock's possible longevity compared to his own—and for a moment Spock felt his heart heavy and low in his side, like someone already grieving the inevitable loss.

Of course, he had grieved in earnest a year later when Kirk was lost when the _Enterprise-B_ tangled with the Nexus.

And then grieved again 78 years after that when the Nexus released him long enough to help Jon Luc Picard defeat a madman.

That time had been the worst, fraught as it was with missed opportunities and irony.

With an effort, Spock turns his attention to the young weapons specialist shivering on his sofa in his living room on New Vulcan.

"What will you do once you return to Earth?" he says as he settles himself in a chair opposite her. "Have you already procured employment?"

"I have not," she says with a sad smile. "I'm glad you brought that up, actually. I wonder if I might ask your advice about something."

Advice? Humans have often asked him for answers—to equations or complex procedures—but rarely has anyone asked for advice. The word conjures up interpersonal relationships and decisions based on what other people deem appropriate. Not his strength. He tells Dr. Marcus so.

"That's what makes you exactly the person I need to talk to," Dr. Marcus says. "I don't want to hear pat answers—like the kind my mother would give me. I need to see things from a different point of view."

"Then by all means, ask your question," Spock says, bemused despite himself. Carol Marcus tucks herself further into the sofa and pulls the blanket around her.

"When I left Starfleet, I never thought I'd consider going back. Not after what happened with my…father."

"You have changed your mind."

"Yes!" she says. "I mean, I'm thinking seriously about it. How did you know?"

"You prefaced your comments by saying that you would not have considered going back. Why mention that unless you have changed your mind."

The tip of Carol's nose turns bright pink, though from embarrassment or being overly bundled in a blanket, Spock isn't certain.

"Well, yes," she stammers. "That makes sense."

For a moment she is silent and Spock wonders if she will continue. Then with a little shake of her head, she goes on.

"When I was on Andoria, I had time to think about what happened with my father. He thought what he was doing was right, that he was helping Earth prepare for the kind of attack that destroyed Vulcan."

She looks at him so suddenly that Spock realizes she thinks her words might have upset him. As if a mention of the genocide could make him feel it more—a human idea, and one his mother would have shared. He nods briefly to encourage Dr. Marcus.

"I mean, I kept thinking that if I had known more information earlier, I could have stopped my father from all that he did. Waking Khan. Building the warship. The long range torpedoes. Everything. But then it came to me that he wasn't the only one working on this. That lots of people—even people high up—must have known. Must have given their approval. Paid the bills. Kept the secrets. It wasn't just my dad after all. Anyone who knew—and there had to have been some—had more chances than I did to stop him."

"Yet no one did," Spock says, and Carol nods. "Yet no one did," she echoes. Her expression lightens like someone letting go of a burden.

"What I did on Andoria wasn't much, but it was something," she says. Spock lifts an eyebrow in surprise. He's read the preliminary report from the Andorian Ruling Council. Carol Marcus figures prominently.

"Your modesty is unwarranted," he says. "You helped avert a war—or at the very least, a blood feud."

"But many people had a hand," she says. "And really, that's what has made me reconsider my resignation. I was just one person who helped put the pieces together—and I like that. I like being part of the whole. Being part of the team. No other job will let me work with people that talented. I'm going to miss that—if I try to work somewhere else. I keep picturing myself back on the _Enterprise._ Does that sound irrational?"

"It sounds," Spock says, "like you have already made up your mind."

"Not quite," Carol says. "I'm not sure that Captain Kirk will want a former stowaway as a crew member. I know he's recovering now, but he might not want me around as a constant reminder of—well, you know."

Spock steeples his hands and leans forward.

"Dr. Marcus, I know Jim Kirk better than anyone, and I can tell you that he does not blame you for what happened, either to the ship or to him personally."

"I wish I knew if that was true!"

He sees her coloring again, her nose as bright as one of the roses his mother used to grow in her garden on Vulcan.

"Ask him yourself," he says. "And I am certain he will be glad to have you as a member of his crew."

Seeing her hesitant look, Spock says, "Very glad, indeed."

**A/N: One last chapter coming up…hopefully very soon. Thanks to everyone for staying with me. Thanks double-much to everyone who leaves a review!**

**Thanks as always to StarTrekFanWriter, for her suggestions. Check out her stories in my faves.**


	10. Denouement

**Chapter Ten: Denouement**

**Disclaimer: No money made here. All for love.**

Carol Marcus stands at the front door of the Vulcan Ambassador's apartment and presses the door chime. Glancing uneasily at the dark, lowering sky, she turns up her collar against the cold wind.

Suddenly fat raindrops splatter across the sidewalk, and then the sky opens up and water falls in sheets. The canvas awning over Carol's head buckles and bends in the onslaught.

The famed San Francisco microclimates—on the other side of the city the sun is shining.

Carol presses the doorbell again with more urgency than she ordinarily would. Did she misunderstand Commander Spock's message? Pulling her comm from her pocket, she checks the time. So much for Vulcan punctuality.

Stepping to the door, Carol presses her ear against it, listening for footsteps. A useless effort—the rain is far too loud to hear anything else. With a sigh, she steps back and considers what to do next.

She could wait here and hope the rain ends soon, or she could make a dash for the hover stop at the end of the street and catch the first bus back to her father's apartment in the Mission District. Wrapping her coat more tightly around her, she's about to head into the rain when she sees a figure running down the sidewalk. A woman—obviously drenched—and vaguely familiar. As Carol watches, she recognizes Lieutenant Uhura.

"Sorry I'm late!" the lieutenant says as she scoots under the awning and up the steps. She reaches past Carol and taps in an entrance code on the number pad beside the door chime. A loud _snick_ and the door snaps open half an inch. Lieutenant Uhura pushes forward and stands for a moment on a small carpet square in the entranceway, water running off her clothes in little rivulets.

"Did you get wet?" she asks as she ducks out of her overcoat. Carol shakes her head.

The ambassador's apartment is as Carol remembers it—spare and calming. She slips out of her coat and Lieutenant Uhura holds out her hand to take it.

She disappears down the hall and Carol takes a slow spin around the room, looking more closely at the art on the walls. Although nothing identifies it as such, Carol feels certain that most is by off-worlders. Something about the aesthetic sensibilities displayed feel alien, unusual—but strangely appealing, too. She makes a mental note to ask the Commander about it when he comes.

_If he comes._ Lieutenant Uhura's presence is unexpected. Again Carol wonders if she misunderstood the message. But no, Commander Spock told her he would meet her here. Something must have delayed him.

A rustle in the hallway and Carol looks up as the lieutenant comes back, now wearing a floor length black robe, her bare toes showing at the hem. She's holding a towel and leaning to the side, squeezing the water from her hair.

"Have a seat, Dr. Marcus," she says, and Carol perches on the sofa. "I'm sorry you had to wait. Can I get you some hot tea?"

_The way the lieutenant knows the access code to the apartment. The fact that she has civilian clothes here. Her bare feet, her casual use of the towel. The easy way she makes her way to the kitchen and opens up the cabinet to pull out two mugs._

With a start, Carol realizes that the lieutenant lives here. With the Commander.

She's so startled by the revelation that she doesn't answer. Lieutenant Uhura backtracks to the door of the kitchen and says, "Dr. Marcus? Tea?"

Giving herself a little shake, Carol says, "Oh, uh, no. I'm fine. Is the Commander coming?""

"He was called to a meeting at Headquarters," the lieutenant says, "but he hopes he won't be long. Sure you don't want anything to drink? I'm really cold!" She starts back into the kitchen and stops abruptly.

"Oh, I know!" she says with a grin. "I have some Belgian hot chocolate! And some whipped cream. How about that?"

Hot tea is one thing. Hot chocolate is quite something else. Carol nods her approval.

She listens as Lieutenant Uhura bustles in the kitchen and returns in a few minutes with two steaming mugs.

"I never get to drink hot chocolate anymore," she says, handing Carol a mug and then parking herself on the other end of the sofa. "Spock doesn't mind, of course, but when I drink it in front of him, I feel like someone eating candy in front of a diabetic."

"He doesn't like it?" Carol asks, mystified, her mind still reeling at hearing the lieutenant call him _Spock_ instead of _Commander_.

"He likes the taste fine," Lieutenant Uhura says. "It's the _effects_ he objects to." She glances up after taking a sip and Carol shoots her a confused look. "Chocolate is an intoxicant for Vulcans," Lieutenant Uhura says. "So I guess a better metaphor would be to say that I feel like I'm drinking a glass of bourbon in front of an alcoholic. Er, well, you know what I mean."

In fact, Carol has no idea what the lieutenant is talking about. To avoid answering, she lifts her mug to her lips and drinks.

For a few moments the two women drink their hot chocolate in silence, the distant patter of rain against the window the only noise. Then the lieutenant shifts and sets her mug on the small table beside the sofa.

"Professor Artura's on his way back to Earth," she says. "He sent a report ahead, though he said you would be able to fill in the details."

Carol hesitates. Should she wait and explain what happened when Commander Spock is present? On the other hand, she doesn't know when or if he will arrive. If Lieutenant Uhura couldn't be trusted with the entire story, she wouldn't be here now.

For the next half hour Carol lays out the chronology of her time on Andoria. At first her recitation is stilted, as if she is writing a formal Starfleet report, but the lieutenant interrupts her occasionally with such insightful questions that Carol finds herself loosening up, adding more of her personal reactions to her commentary. When she finishes at last, she's both relieved and surprised that she's shared so much of herself in the story…including her recent question about whether or not she made a mistake in resigning from Starfleet.

"Sounds like you've already made up your mind about re-enlisting," Lieutenant Uhura says as she gets up and takes Carol's empty mug to the kitchen. Carol rises and follows her, watching her set the dishes in the washer.

"That's what Selek said," she says. An unreadable expression crosses the lieutenant's face.

"He would know," Lieutenant Uhura says. A mystifying comment, one Carol is hesitant about asking her to explain.

"Be that as it may," Carol says in a rush, "I have…other…concerns about re-enlisting. As appealing as it is to apply for a position on the _Enterprise_, I'm not sure the captain would agree."

"Because of what happened?" Lieutenant Uhura says. "With your father?"

Carol feels her face heat up.

"Because of what happened since then," she says. "I saw the captain on New Vulcan and we had a chance to talk. I know I shouldn't say this, but I felt…something."

Turning, she heads back to the sofa and sits, angling her face away when the lieutenant sits down, too. Suddenly she's sorry she's said anything, but what's left unsaid is more worrying. She forces herself to continue.

"I mean," she says, struggling to find the right words, "I feel _drawn_ to the captain in a way that makes the idea of working together difficult."

"You think you couldn't have a personal relationship and remain professional," the lieutenant says, her tone a cross between a question and a statement.

At this Carol looks up and is surprised to see a hint of a smile on the lieutenant's lips.

"I'm not sure such a thing is possible," Carol says. And then she adds, "Is it?"

"This is the 23rd century," Lieutenant Uhura says, her smile breaking out in full force. "You don't have to compartmentalize your life that way. Sure it can work. It just depends on how much you want it to."

A rustle at the door and Carol looks up to see Commander Spock walking in. He takes her in with a glance but his eyes travel swiftly to Lieutenant Uhura. If Carol weren't watching closely, she would have missed it—a subtle change in his eyes, in the cant of his head. _Pleasure._ No, something more profound. _Joy_. Sneaking a peek at the lieutenant, Carol sees his happiness echoed there.

"You missed all the fun!" Lieutenant Uhura teases. "Dr. Marcus and I just had some hot chocolate."

"Then my tardiness was fortuitous," he says, his own voice as playful. With a rush of gratitude, Carol realizes that she is privy to a private moment because of their trust in her.

"She just finished telling me about how she saved the day on Andoria," the lieutenant says, and once again Carol blushes.

"Not at all," Carol hastens to say.

"She's being modest," Lieutenant Uhura says. "And she's also weighing what to do now. Help me talk her into coming back to Starfleet."

"I suspect," the Commander says, the look on his face oddly familiar, "that someone else would be more convincing."

X X X

Carol stands twenty feet beyond the finish line of the Bay Area Half Marathon. As it often is, the weather is chilly and damp, dark clouds scudding across the sky. Feeling one raindrop, then two, Carol pulls the hood of her jacket up and steps around a group of onlookers obscuring her view of the finishers.

The leaders of the pack are long gone and the weekend runners are limping their way across the finish line before Carol spots Jim Kirk in the distance. As he gets closer she can see that he's loping in pain, his hair sweaty and matted. He's wearing an old gray Academy t-shirt with the sleeves cut out—which, Carol notes, allows her to see that his biceps are—

Giving herself a little shake, Carol takes a deep breath.

"Carol!"

Waving to her, he grins sheepishly and adds, "I mean, Dr. Marcus. What are you doing here?"

Without waiting for an answer, he runs forward a few yards to a table with cups of water and electrolyte replacement beverages. Grabbing one, he upends it and shuffles back to where Carol stands awkwardly, wondering how to answer.

Why _is_ she here?

Before she can come up with something to say—_she has a friend in the race, she was just passing by_—he says, "Admit it. You came to see me."

To her horror Carol feels her face turn red.

"No, I—" she stammers. The captain grins widely and all at once it seems foolish to lie to him. "Ah, well, yes, in fact I did. Someone told me you were racing and I wanted to make sure you were okay. That you have…recovered."

"So your interest is purely medical," Kirk says, still grinning. Carol realizes she is being chaffed.

"_Primarily_ medical," she says, teasing back. "Though I have other reasons as well."

"Such as?"

"This probably isn't the time or place after all," she says, matching his pace as he makes his way through the milling crowd of runners and spectators to the sidewalk leading out of the park.

Ruffling his hand through his damp hair, the captain says, "But you came all this way."

They've walked to the edge of the grassy strip along the marina that attracts families with children and people walking dogs. On the other side of the street is one of the Academy gyms. After a hover bus passes by, Kirk darts across the street and calls back to Carol.

"Give me five minutes to get a shower," he says, "and then let's grab some dinner. I want to hear what you came to say."

Carol opens her mouth to tell him not to worry, that she'll catch him some other time. But even as she does, she knows that if she lets the moment pass, she won't make another one happen. _The old idea of seizing the day—carpe diem—that fueled some of the raciest ancient poetry._ Does she really want to risk this?

She has an image of Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura at the Ambassador's apartment, some ineffable communication buzzing between them when they were physically close, some subterranean energy like a bubble excluding everyone else. Whatever they have is working.

Carol isn't looking for that sort of intimacy. A job, a way to be useful. An opportunity to make a difference. No sense in jumping ahead of herself with wild speculations.

"I suppose I could," she says, but at that moment a flitter with a rattling condenser passes by and Jim Kirk lifts his hand to his ear.

"I can't hear you!"

"I said—" she begins, and then swiveling her head from left to right and judging the speed of the traffic, she darts across the street to where he stands on the sidewalk.

"This is better," the captain says as she joins him, and she wonders if he's not just talking about where they stand now, but where they might stand in the future.

She blushes at the thought. _Nothing's going to happen._

"Just something quick," she says, and instantly she feels him deflate. She hesitates a moment and then adds, "I mean, I have things I have to do."

Even to her own ears that sounds like a lie. The captain—Jim—apparently thinks so, too. He brightens up immediately.

"Five minutes!" he says, holding up one hand. "Wait right here!"

Before she can protest otherwise, he darts away into the gym.

Carol's first impulse is to leave. Feeling foolish as she shifts and waits, she considers sending a message to his comm with some excuse—_something came up and she was called away, she suddenly remembered another appointment_—anything to give her time to slow down and think through whether or not she really wants to talk to him.

But another part of her is genuinely relieved to see that he is—if not completely whole—getting there, at least well enough to finish the race. If his face is slightly drawn, if he looks a little underweight, he's clearly on the mend. At least she can stop beating herself up about his health. With that burden lifted from her shoulders, she is surprised to find that she doesn't feel so uncomfortable in his presence—that she might, in fact, enjoy a meal with him.

But only a meal. And only something casual and friendly—that's all.

He's back in less than five minutes wearing pressed chinos and a blue button down shirt, a retro fashion that looks surprisingly good on him. With an easy motion he touches her elbow as they head back across the street toward the marina.

"So," he says as they walk, "what is it you came all the way to say to me?"

Careful not to meet his eyes, Carol looks straight ahead. "Right, well, I've just gotten back from a trip to Andoria—"

"The missile crisis," Jim says. "You solved it. Good job, by the way."

Carol is so flustered that for a moment she can't speak. "You know about that?"

"I have my sources," he says, grinning. Spock and Uhura, of course. He is, after all, their captain. She should have known they would tell him everything.

"Yes, well," she stutters, her face growing hot, "that trip made me reconsider my resignation from Starfleet. I wanted your input on whether or not I should re-enlist."

The grin fades from his expression and he looks thoughtful and serious.

"That's a big decision," he says, and Carol's heart falls, not because of what he says but for what he doesn't say. No endorsement, no encouragement. Perhaps he can't get past what happened—past her father's involvement and her own deception, the way she lied to get aboard the _Enterprise_.

The thing to do, she thinks, is to accept that and move forward. She might re-enlist and she might not—but even if she does, his lukewarm response means she won't be serving on his ship. Taking a deep breath, she prepares to thank him and make some excuse to leave.

"A decision that big requires some serious discussion," he says, touching her elbow again to herd her toward a small brick cafe at the end of the pier. "A long discussion," he adds, "over wine and lobster."

Stopping in her tracks, Carol says, "But I thought—"

What did she think? Suddenly she isn't sure. That he was still angry with her? That he blamed her? He takes a step closer to her and she's suddenly aware that his eyes are an unearthly blue. He's so close that she gets a whiff of his aftershave, feels the heat roiling off his body. To her horror, she feels herself flush—and worse, become genuinely aroused.

"You thought," Jim says, his eyes narrowed in concentration, "that I might not want to work with you again. That I might think that someone talented enough to keep the Andorians from killing each other wouldn't want to serve as a mere science officer."

"Well, no—"

"You said I had a reputation," he says, leaning in slightly, "so maybe that worries you."

He's looking at her so intently that her breathing becomes labored. "That was a joke," she murmurs. "About your reputation, I mean."

Jim's gaze travels to her mouth and for a moment Carol is convinced that he's going to kiss her. Her heart beats so hard that she hears it in her ears.

_Does she want this?_ With a start, she realizes that she does.

He doesn't move, and Carol knows he is waiting for some sign that he has her permission. It's such a courtly notion—such an endearingly old-fashioned attitude—that Carol smiles.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm just suddenly very, very hungry," she says. A flicker of disappointment ripples across his expression, replaced almost at once with amusement. He straightens up.

"Save some room," he says, his voice coy, his grin lopsided, "for dessert."

**A/N: The End! I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing and recommending it to other Star Trek fans. And a special thanks to everyone who went into this unsure how you felt about Carol Marcus as a character but willing to give this story a chance anyway!**

**Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions. They improved the story immensely.**

**I'm busy writing a story in the "Elementary" fandom these days. I've always been a Sherlock Holmes fan (and am convinced Spock is his 23rd century incarnation) in all his iterations. If you are interested, check out my finished story, "Sherlock Goes to School," or the WIP, "Sherlock Goes to Dixie."**

**It's always good to hear from you!**


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